02/09/2026
GHANA’S IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN: ARE WE SOLVING THE PROBLEM OR MERELY SWEEPING THE STREETS?
The Ghana Immigration Service has conducted another intelligence-led operation in Greater Accra and the Ashanti Region targeting suspected networks involved in the trafficking and exploitation of foreign nationals for forced begging.
A total of 1,055 West African nationals were apprehended, including 662 children, 248 women and 145 men. Some Ghanaian nationals suspected of acting as local agents were also detained.
The operation is commendable. However, an operation of this magnitude should not merely provoke applause. It should provoke serious questions about our borders, our intelligence architecture and the manner in which we respond to emerging threats.
1. HOW DID THEY GET HERE?
This, to me, is the starting point.
How do more than 1,000 foreign nationals, including hundreds of children, enter Ghana, establish themselves in our major cities and operate openly on our streets before they come to the attention of the authorities?
Where did they cross our borders? Who brought them? Who received them? Where are they accommodated? Who transports them to the streets, and who coordinates their activities?
If this was an intelligence-led operation, then our intelligence must go beyond identifying people after they have appeared on the streets. Intelligence should enable us to identify the networks, routes and facilitators before the problem assumes this scale.
2. WHERE ARE THE SYNDICATE OPERATORS?
GIS has indicated that the operation is targeting syndicates exploiting these vulnerable people.
Then the obvious question is: where are the people behind the syndicates? Who recruits them? Who finances the movement? Who provides accommodation? Who assigns begging locations? Who collects the proceeds?
And where are the Ghanaian collaborators allegedly facilitating the operation? The people found on the streets may be the most visible part of the problem, but they are unlikely to be the people at the centre of it. We should not be satisfied with arresting the pawns while the players remain untouched. Follow the money. Dismantle the network. Bring the organisers to justice.
3. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST OPERATION
There is another question we cannot ignore: what happens after the operation? This is not the first time authorities have conducted an exercise against migrant street begging. Yet the phenomenon keeps resurfacing. So, after people are arrested and repatriated, how do some of them return?
Are their identities properly documented? Are repeat entrants flagged? Are the routes and facilitators monitored? Are the networks that brought them in dismantled? If the same problem repeatedly returns after successive operations, then perhaps the weakness is not in our ability to conduct an operation. The weakness may be in what happens before and after the operation.
We cannot keep mopping the floor while leaving the tap running.
4. THIS IS A NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE
At this point, the matter transcends street begging.
Any organised network capable of moving large numbers of people across borders, establishing them in Ghana and coordinating their activities should be of interest to our national-security institutions.
Today, the activity may be organised begging and human exploitation. Tomorrow, an entirely different network could attempt to exploit the same vulnerabilities for criminal purposes.
This is why border management cannot be treated as an administrative formality. We need to know who enters Ghana, how they enter, why they are here, where they are going and who receives them. A country does not strengthen its security by reacting only after a problem becomes visible. The real strength of a security system lies in its ability to anticipate and prevent threats.
5. GHANA’S TOURISM IMAGE MATTERS
There is also an economic dimension to this issue.
Ghana is investing heavily in tourism and presenting itself to the world as a safe, welcoming and attractive destination.
But the visitor experience matters. A tourist who is repeatedly followed, surrounded or harassed for money on the streets of Accra or Kumasi may not leave with the impression we intend to create. Our hospitality must not be confused with disorder.
We can be welcoming without allowing organised street begging to become normalised around our tourist centres, airports, hotels and major attractions. Protecting Ghana’s tourism image is not cosmetic. It is economic policy.
6. REACTION IS NOT PREVENTION
What concerns me most is the possibility of becoming a country that is perpetually reacting to problems instead of preventing them. We conduct an operation, make arrests, issue statements, and move on. Then months later, the same problem reappears. That approach may produce headlines, but it does not necessarily produce security.
If our systems cannot consistently identify and disrupt organised movements of people across our borders, what happens when the threat is not forced begging but organised crime, weapons trafficking or terrorism? National security requires vigilance before the threat materialises, not merely courage after it has arrived.
7. GHANA MUST LEARN FROM THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHER COUNTRIES
There is also a broader international lesson.
Several European countries have experienced serious incidents of Islamist extremism and terrorism involving individuals with migrant or asylum backgrounds. These experiences have forced governments to reconsider border controls, asylum procedures, intelligence-sharing, integration and counter-radicalisation.
The lesson Ghana should draw is not to demonise foreigners or an entire religious community. It is that compassion must operate alongside prudence. A nation can be humane without being naïve. We can offer protection to genuinely vulnerable people while maintaining proper identification, documentation, screening and security procedures.
Ghana has a proud tradition of hospitality. But hospitality must never mean surrendering the responsibility to protect the nation.
8. THE WAY FORWARD
We need to move beyond periodic crackdowns and develop a sustained national strategy.
That strategy should include stronger border surveillance, biometric registration, better intelligence-sharing among GIS, the Police and national-security institutions, proper screening of vulnerable migrants, protection and rehabilitation of trafficked children, and lawful repatriation where immigration violations are established.
Most importantly, the syndicates must be investigated and prosecuted. The 1,055 people apprehended should not be the conclusion of this exercise. They should be the beginning of a deeper investigation into the networks that brought them here.
The real questions are:
Who brought them here?
Who receives them?
Who organises them?
Who profits from their exploitation?
And why were these networks able to operate on such a scale before being disrupted?
Ghana must remain welcoming. Ghana must remain compassionate. But Ghana must also remain vigilant, orderly and secure.
A nation does not protect its borders because it is hostile to foreigners.
It protects its borders because it has a responsibility to its citizens.
Ghana 🇬🇭
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