Vice Chair of Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, Peter Lanchene Toobu has said the Ghana Immigration Service collaborated with various Embassies to repatriate some foreign street beggars who were arrested in the country in May 2025.
The illegal migrants were picked up across the various streets in Accra including Abbosey Okai, Kaneshie, Circle and other areas.
Speaking in an interview on TV3’s Hot Issues, Sunday, November 16, 2025, the Wa West MP said the illegal migrants were not prosecuted or sent to court when they were arrested.
He explained that government did not intend to create any “diplomatic uproar” with any of the countries the migrants came from, citing ECOWAS sub-region relations.
“We happen to be in the ECOWAS sub-region. You see a lot of Nigerians here after 90 days, they will go back and register, get to the border and stamp your passport. You can live here for 90 days.
“And many of those people who were here, entered the country a month or so. When you get them, because of the nature of the crowd, they were very young and we knew what was in there.
“So what Immigration did was just to support them to go back home. The Embassy supported and we took them back home. We didn’t want to create any diplomatic roar with any other country, we are brothers and sisters,” he stated.
He stressed that the Interior Ministry through the Ghana Immigration Service decided to support them by returning them back to their country.
“When we arrested them, they were never taken to court, they were never prosecuted. We knew where they came from, we just take the details,” he added.
Ghana Immigration Service in a special operation has picked up over 2000 foreign street beggars across various locations on the streets of Accra.
The operation carried out on Friday, May 16, 2025 led to the arrest of 384 male adults, 577 male children, 525 female adults and 755 female children.
Speaking in an interview with TV3 after the swoop, Head of Public Affairs, Assistant Commissioner of Immigration, Mike Amoako -Atta disclosed that these individuals are being profiled to be transported in buses to their various destinations.
“The GIS clinic is attending to them and then a team undertakes the profiling after that we bus them to their various destination.
“After their medical screening, we look at their documentation as to how they entered the country and whether they are legal or illegal immigrant,” he stated.
