The United States Imposes Travel Visa Sanctions on Ghana Effective February 4, 2019

The United States Imposes Travel Visa Sanctions on Ghana Effective February 4, 2019

By E. Stanley Ukeni

It seems like, after years of ongoing soft diplomatic row that involved accusation and counter accusation between the United States government and the Ghanaian government, the United States’ Department of State has finally decided to put the squeeze on the Ghanaian government…hard.

My sense is that this new coercive approach is aimed at exerting maximum pressure on the administration of the Ghanaian President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to honor its international obligation by accepting his country’s nationals who are facing deportation from the United States.   

I have reliable information from sources within the government in Ghana that the two governments have been at an impasse since 2017, perhaps even longer—with the former US Ambassador to Ghana, Robert P. Jackson, on a number of occasions appealing to the Ghanaian government to prioritize the issuance of travel documents to returning deportees, to no avail.

It would seem that the United States’ Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo has had enough of the stalemate, and instructed the consular officers in Ghana to stop issuing some categories of visas to applicants.

In the video below, the current US Ambassador to Ghana, Stephanie S. Sullivan is seen issuing directive to this effect.

In a statement on Thursday, January 31^st 2019, the Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, said “Ghana has failed to live up to its obligations under international law to accept the return of its nationals ordered removed from the United States.”

The statement continues, “We hope the Ghanaian government will work with us to reconcile these deficiencies quickly.”

On its own part, the Ghanaian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration issued the press release below in response to the directive from Ambassador Stephanie S. Sullivan.

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