Sysouls 🍉

US Deports Three LGBTQ+ Ghanaian Women to Cameroon, Where Being Gay Is Also a Crime, as U.S Supreme Court Tuesday Ruling Allows Trump's Third-Country Deportations Three Ghanaian women who fled persecution for being LGBTQ+ are stranded in Cameroon after the United States deported them there, even though a US court had granted them protection from being sent back to Ghana. Their story is a warning of what could happen to more vulnerable people after Tuesday's US Supreme Court ruling. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court said the Trump administration can resume quickly, deporting immigrants to "third countries," meaning countries that are not their home country, without giving them a chance to challenge their removal. As is common with emergency orders, the justices did not explain their decision. The ruling takes effect while the court considers the wider case, with oral arguments set for December. The three women arrived in the US in 2024. Instead of being allowed to stay safely, they were sent to Cameroon under a secret US agreement with more than 30 countries to accept deportees who can not legally be returned home. At least 36 migrants with no ties to Cameroon have been sent there under this arrangement. The women say in an August 2026 interview with DW News that they were shackled "like terrorists" during the transfer. In Cameroon, they were held in a government compound in Yaoundé for two months and were only allowed out during the day after going on a hunger strike. They can not work, live under restrictions, and are still waiting for asylum decisions. Like Ghana, Cameroon criminalises same-sex relationships and can imprison people for being gay. This means the women have escaped one country that punishes who they are, only to be placed in another. Their case is not the only one. In September 2025, a bisexual man from The Gambia, named in court documents as K.S., was deported from the US to Ghana and then forced back to The Gambia, despite US protection against being returned there. His case shows that people sent to third countries can be pushed onward to the very places they fled. Human rights advocates warn that the Supreme Court ruling could put more LGBTQ+ asylum seekers at risk. Legal protections mean little if people can simply be moved to another country where they face the same danger. The US must respect its duty to protect people fleeing persecution, and countries receiving deportees must not become a route back to harm. Video credit: DW