Foreign Affairs Minister explains how coronavirus has delayed deportation of illegal Ghanaians from US

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, has indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the delay of processing emergency travel certificates for the deportation of illegal Ghanaian migrants in the United States.

She disclosed this on the floor of Parliament on Wednesday 22nd July, 2020.

“A total of five meeting sections were held between May and December 2019. Till the lifting of the sanctions on January 15, 2020,” she said.

“During the period of sanction, 125 Ghanaians who had been ordered to be removed from the US were deported. Currently, interviews for persons cited for deportation are ongoing an agreed by the two sides,” the Minister said.

However, in the wake of COVID-19 the issuance of emergency travel certificates to facilitate their removal has been deferred until boarders are reopened,” she stated.

“It is important to state that whenever there was a need for specific intervention on humanitarian ground, be it, health or family, it was done by engaging the relevant US authority.”