A Ghanaian national who lived in Minnesota is alleging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement illegally deported him earlier this week.
Martin Berchie, who had been detained by ICE in Sherburne County Jail since August, alleges that ICE forged his name on the travel document used to deport him to Ghana on Tuesday.
Travel documents are official paperwork needed that authorize the removal of a non-U.S. citizen to another country.
Berchie, 31, made the allegation in a legal filing Wednesday afternoon in U.S. District Court. The legal filing asks for an evidentiary hearing to present the allegations to a judge.
“The deportation was performed in an illegal manner through the use of forged documents,” Berchie’s attorney, Nico Ratkowski, wrote in the Wednesday legal filing.
Sahan Journal reached out to ICE for comment but did not receive a response.
Berchie alleges that ICE agents put his name on a travel document that was already used for a different ICE detainee who had already been deported. They then “abandoned” Berchie in pre-customs in Ghana “instead of presenting him to Ghana immigration authorities.”
“Ghana rejected [Berchie] and went to look for the immigration officers that brought him, but was unable to locate those officers,” Berchie’s legal filing reads.
Ghanaian immigration authorities then “had no other choice” but to process Berchie into Ghana, according to the legal filing.
“This is akin to pushing Berchie out of a helicopter with a parachute because a travel document could not be produced,” Ratkowski wrote in the legal filing. “If [Berchie]’s claims are true, [ICE]’s actions were extraordinarily illegal and are a seminal and extremely concerning example of bad faith by the agency.”
In August shortly after his arrest, Ratkowski filed a habeas corpus lawsuit in court asking ICE to release Berchie because previous attempts to deport him had been unsuccessful. Habeas corpus lawsuits are requests to the court to be released from jail while an immigration case is pending.
Berchie came to the United States from Ghana in 2018 on an F1 visa to attend college. His visa expired the following year, according to a legal filing by Assistant U.S. Attorney Trevor Brown opposing his habeas motion.
In 2020, he was charged with two counts of criminal sexual conduct after a woman accused him of sexual assault. Berchie ultimately pleaded guilty in September 2021 to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct. Court documents say he was credited for time already served at the time of his sentencing.
ICE detained him in November 2020, and held Berchie in the Freeborn County Jail. In March 2021, an immigration judge ordered Berchie to be removed from the country and deported to Ghana. But ICE had trouble deporting Berchie and released him from jail in February 2022 because “Ghana was not timely issuing a travel document at that point,” according to the legal filing by Brown.
ICE instead placed him on an order of supervision, which required him to check in with the agency on a monthly basis.
Berchie complied with the supervision order through August of this year, according to his habeas lawsuit. In fact, ICE detained Berchie during a check-in required under the supervision order.
“[Berchie] is now detained because there is a significant likelihood of his removal to Ghana in the foreseeable future,” Brown wrote.
Brown wrote that Ghana had, so far this year, issued 70 travel documents to ICE detainees and that ICE officials applied for a travel document for Berchie on Aug. 12.
“Berchie will be removed from the United States in the foreseeable future,” Brown wrote.
Ratkowski disputed this argument in Berchie’s habeas lawsuit, arguing that the difficulty of obtaining a travel document from Ghana had not changed since 2022.
“The government is not in possession of any credible or persuasive documents or evidence that Berchie’s removal is likely to occur in the reasonably foreseeable future,” Ratkowski wrote in Berchie’s habeas lawsuit.
He characterized Berchie’s detention as “punitive” and serving “no legitimate purpose.”
“The redetention of Berchie is designed to send a message to other individuals with final orders of removal that they need to leave the United States or they will be jailed indefinitely and without any process,” Ratkowski wrote in Berchie’s habeas lawsuit.
