The Urgency of Designating Cameroon for Temporary Protected Status
The U.S. government should immediately grant Temporary Protected Status to Cameroonian nationals in the United States, given the extraordinary and deteriorating conditions in the country that make a safe return impossible.
Cameroonian immigrant Charles Lwanga stands in a crowd gathered at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., to remember Black immigrants who have been recently deported. (Getty/Jahi Chikwendiu)
Authors: Silva Mathema and Zefitret Abera MollaCameroon is grappling with multiple humanitarian crises—including an armed conflict—that have increased insecurity, destabilized the nation, and caused its people immense suffering. Conflicts across the region involving state security forces, armed nonstate groups, and attacks by the transnational terrorist group Boko Haram have contributed to rising human rights abuses and deteriorating living conditions in the country. While security is a major concern for civilians, increasing food insecurity, compounded by economic instability as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed many Cameroonians to the brink. Amid such complex and worsening circumstances, there is growing evidence that returning home means risking persecution, detention, torture, mass displacement, and worse for Cameroonian nationals living abroad. Records show that those deported to Cameroon face a heightened risk of persecution and being subjected to the harms they originally fled, as many are targeted by President Paul Biya’s government, who views returnees as opposition.
Under existing immigration law, the U.S. secretary of homeland security is authorized to designate a country for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) if it meets certain conditions that temporarily preclude its nationals from returning safely. Deteriorating conditions in Cameroon along with ongoing humanitarian crises exacerbated by the pandemic make return dangerous and warrant immediate humanitarian protection for Cameroonians residing in the United States. Reports indicate that current U.S. asylum policies have failed to provide Cameroonians with due process when seeking asylum. As a result, many Cameroonians have suffered ill treatment and abuse in immigration detention, where they have faced discrimination because of their race, forcing many to return to a country where they may face grave harm and persecution.
The Center for American Progress estimates that there are up to 40,000 noncitizen Cameroonians living in the United States—32,700 adults and 7,300 children—who could be made eligible for protection by a TPS designation.* Given the worsening crisis in Cameroon, various Black immigrants’ rights advocacy organizations such as Cameroon Advocacy Network, Haitian Bridge Alliance, and UndocuBlack Network—along with members of Congress—have been advocating to temporarily protect them from deportation. It is urgent that the U.S. government do so now and provide protection and stability for Cameroonian nationals living in the United States.
Read the full report at Center for American Progress
Zefitret Abera Molla
Molla is a research assistant for the Immigration Policy team at American Progress. Prior to joining American Progress, Molla was a graduate student assistant at the University of San Francisco.