Cameroonian deportations under Trump administration highlight uncertain future for refugees
The world is still spinning from the recent and agonizingly drawn out U.S. election, which saw Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, chosen as the new President-Elect. Meanwhile, President Trump has launched a burst of legal challenges in key states in the Electoral College and promoted unsubstantiated allegations of widespread election fraud.
Yet on November 10, while the country continued to be consumed by coverage of the election and its aftermath, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were expected to fly Cameroonian asylum seekers back to their home country. This incident ignited widespread concern from human rights activists such as Ignatius Njowir, Secretary General of the Cameroon Center for Peace and Protection of Human Rights. Njowir has denounced the U.S. decision which he says will put Cameroonians at risk of torture and civil conflict in their homeland which they desperately sought to escape.
These Cameroonian refugees entered the United States last year through South America and Mexico seeking asylum. Since 2016, around 10 000 Cameroonians have sought asylum in the U.S., with many being held in ICE’s Otay Mesa detention facility just outside of San Diego. The reason for the massive influx in Cameroonian refugees relates to the current Cameroonian government’s intensifying civil conflict against marginalized Anglophone regions, which has been conducted for years now under President Paul Biya. It is projected that more than 700 000 Cameroonians from the predominantly Anglophone regions have been displaced with many fleeing to neighbouring African states like Nigeria. Currently, it is marked as the most neglected displacement crisis in the world according to the 2019 Norwegian Refugee Council. This ranking is based on a lack of financial support and media attention, and both political and diplomatic negligence from the international community.
These deportations by ICE officials are just the latest in the scorched earth policy of the Trump administration. On October 13, 60 Cameroonian and 28 Congolese asylum-seekers were discretely flown out of Fort Worth Alliance airport in Texas. This is the second group of Cameroonian asylum-seekers to be deported, along with those repatriated last month, who are now missing or remain in hiding out of fear for their lives. This deliberate and damaging policy approach to immigration is just one piece of a holistic effort to erode the rights of refugees and curtail migration which also encompasses a reduction in asylum grants, banning sanctuary cities, and incorporating stringent screening for visa applications.
In this latest round of deportations, over 200 asylum seekers, mostly from Cameroon, were transferred to Prairieland Detention Center near Dallas in preparation for the flight, according to phone interviews with detainees. Many of these individuals were apprehended, forcibly coerced into signing deportation paperwork relinquishing their immigration hearing rights after months of torture and abuse. Upon discovery of these allegations of gross human rights violations by ICE agents, a growing campaign to stop the deportations has emerged.
Rebecca Cassler, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, has expressed that these Cameroonian refugee cases are indicative of a broken asylum system. With a new administration taking office in January, it is crucial that the United States reverses these damaging policies introduced by the Trump administration, and reasserts itself as a country that respects international law. Under a new president, the U.S. can and must begin to undo the years of neglect and abuse toward asylum seekers and refugees who have sought humanitarian assistance and legal protections on American soil. Under a Biden presidency, the U.S. has an opportunity to transform their immigration policy and system to protect those in need, such as the Cameroonian asylum seekers, who were unjustly denied their right to protection and a chance at a new life.