By Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Saturday said it appeared that President Donald Trump’s administration intentionally circumvented immigration laws this week when it deported Nigerian and Gambian migrants to Ghana.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, based in Washington, D.C., scheduled an emergency hearing after lawyers representing some of the migrants said their clients expected they could be moved to their home countries, where they fear torture or persecution.

The deportations are part of Trump’s strategy to send migrants to “third countries” to speed their removal and pressure migrants in the U.S. illegally to leave.

Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama said this week that his nation struck an agreement with the U.S. to accept West African deportees and had already received

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