Importing PGP keys by setting 'gpg --homedir ~/.thunderbird/xxxx-release/ --import keys.asc' does not import secret keys properly?

[excited-bore]

I've tried a bunch of times importing secret keys made by gpg to the ~/.thunderbird/xxx-release/ folder without using the builtin OpenGPG Manager because I like to automate the creation / deletion of files. Everytime I import my keys
using
gpg --export-secret-keys | gpg --homedir ~/.thunderbird/xxxx-release/ --import
, they fail to get recognized.
When I go look to the mails of the keys I just imported in the OpenGPG manager I never see a key in bold.
(When I set 'mail.openpgp.allow_external_gnupg true' in the config editor it still doesn't update the new keys, but everything does work automagically).

Exporting to file and importing through 'Import secret keys from file' does alleviate this issue, but I'm trying to automate key importing/exporting using scripts. I also prefer to avoid importing through the UI because I always get confused by trying to import public keys instead of secret keys. That's more of a nitpick, but i just don't understand why there are multiple 'Import from file' options in the first place when even gpg with its thousands of options only offers '--import'.

OS: Manjaro 24.0.5 Wynsdey
Thunderbird version: 115.12.2
Gpg version: 2.4.5