Rabbiatu Kuyateh is a 58-year-old nurse who spent most of her life in the US with her parents after fleeing Sierra Leone. She cared for Covid patients during the pandemic and looked after disabled adults and children. On 1 July 2025, her son, Mohamed, accompanied her to a routine ICE check-in, as her immigration status required. That was the last time he saw her before she was deported to Ghana. Rabbiatu is one of more than 25,000 people deported by the Trump administration to countries that are not their own. More than 5,000 of them have been put on flights to countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and central Asia to which they have no connection, and then, often, returned to the countries where US immigration judges had ruled their lives or liberty were at risk. To uncover some of their stories, the Guardian joined 23 other media organisations in the Deportation Project, an investigation coordinated by the Paris-based international network of journalists Forbidden Stories. Rabbiatu's interview was conducted with audio only and we are using an actor to represent her and her son. The Ghanaian government did not respond to questions from the Guardian. Rabbiatu had a work visa and under its terms she had an annual check-in with ICE. In September 2025 she was granted legal protection from a judge that prevented her from being deported to her country of birth. She also said she had no criminal history. In a response received after the investigation was published, the Department of Homeland Security said she had committed an offence in the past by entering the US without the correct visa requirements: “On 1 July 2025, ICE arrested Rabbiatu Kuyateh, a criminal illegal alien from Sierra Leone who illegally re-entered - a felony.” “Illegal aliens going to third countries are those whose home countries won’t accept them, including dangerous criminals, or illegal aliens with orders of removal who have asked to not be removed to their home country.” Read the full investigation into these deportations by Louisa Loveluck at the link in bio. - @guardian