[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1048 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1048
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the plight of
Cameroonian immigrants and the continued turmoil and instability in the
nation of Cameroon merits a designation of humanitarian parole and
calling on the Department of Homeland Security to create a humanitarian
parole program for Cameroonians fleeing this violence.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 1, 2024
Mr. Espaillat (for himself, Mr. Ivey, Mr. Trone, Mr. Bowman, Ms.
Ocasio-Cortez, Mr. Ruppersberger, Mr. Cleaver, and Mr. McGovern)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Foreign Affairs,
for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case
for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of
the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the plight of
Cameroonian immigrants and the continued turmoil and instability in the
nation of Cameroon merits a designation of humanitarian parole and
calling on the Department of Homeland Security to create a humanitarian
parole program for Cameroonians fleeing this violence.
Whereas Cameroon is currently facing multiple ongoing armed conflicts including
the Boko Haram terror crisis, the Seleka/Anti-Balaka rebel crisis, the
Anglophone secessionist crisis, and other ethno-religious clashes, in
addition to widespread corruption and political instability;
Whereas Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa, which have been designated as foreign
terrorist organizations by the United States Government since 2013 and
2018, respectively, have continued to launch deadly attacks on villages
and civilians in Cameroon's northern region;
Whereas the civil war in the Central African Republic has also spilled over to
Cameroon, with cross-border militias initiating conflicts in eastern
Cameroon;
Whereas, from 2016 through November 2023, over 6,000 people were killed as a
direct result of violence in northwest and southwest Cameroon, and
according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 1,700,000 people in Cameroon are in need of
humanitarian assistance, 638,421 people have been internally displaced,
and more than 87,402 have fled to neighboring Nigeria;
Whereas the Cameroonian military faces credible accusations of arresting people
it identifies as dissidents, burning down civilian homes, and killing
citizens with impunity, further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis for
Cameroonian civilians;
Whereas, due to ongoing armed conflict, continued human rights abuses, and other
extraordinary and temporary conditions in Cameroon that prevent
Cameroonian nationals from safely returning to their country, the
Department of Homeland Security designated Cameroon for temporary
protected status (TPS) in April 2022 and then redesignated and extended
Cameroonian nationals for TPS in October 2023, providing short-term
relief for Cameroonian immigrants who have been continuously residing in
the United States since October 5, 2023;
Whereas the aforementioned TPS designations do not apply to Cameroonians who
arrived in the United States after October 5, 2023, presenting a
pressing need for the United States to apply humanitarian protections
for Cameroonians who continue to flee the ongoing armed conflicts in
their country and who have continued to arrive in the United States
since October 5, 2023;
Whereas, as of February 2024, multiple nations other than Cameroon have received
concurrent TPS designations and humanitarian parole designations from
the Department of Homeland Security as a means of providing
comprehensive protection in the United States for deserving and
embattled immigrant populations;
Whereas Cameroonian immigrants who have fled to Nigeria have previously faced
extradition back to Cameroon where they risk an unfair trial before a
military court and the possibility of torture;
Whereas the journey from Africa to seek refuge in the Western Hemisphere is
particularly perilous and occasionally deadly for Cameroonian migrants,
as demonstrated in March 2023 when a boat carrying nearly 3 dozen West
African immigrants, a majority of whom were Cameroonian migrants en
route to the United States Virgin Islands, capsized, killing 3
Cameroonians and leading to a search for 13 additional bodies that were
never found;
Whereas, in December 2023, the European Union (EU) signed a pact to facilitate
the deportation of asylum seekers and limit migration to the bloc,
leaving Cameroonian migrants fleeing violence or ethnoreligious
persecution particularly at risk;
Whereas, amid stricter EU immigration policies, Cameroonian asylum seekers are
increasingly seeking protection in Latin America and the United States,
where they often face intense discrimination, detainment, poor
conditions of confinement, and deportation;
Whereas, in the United States, despite only making up around 7 percent of the
noncitizen population, Black immigrants represent over 20 percent of
those in deportation proceedings on criminal grounds, constituting
revealing evidence of the disparate treatment of Black immigrants;
Whereas, in August 2020, Cameroonian detainees at Louisiana's Pine Prairie
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center launched
their third hunger strike that year to bring attention to their
experiences of racism, unwarranted threats, and excessive abuse by ICE
officials;
Whereas, although only 6 percent of migrants detained by ICE are Black, 28
percent of abuse complaints over a recent 6-year period (2016-2021) were
reported by Black detained persons, and nearly half of the calls (43
percent) by Black nonbinary-detained persons included reports of abuse;
Whereas immigrants from majority Black countries, such as Cameroon, that are in
ICE detention facilities are sent to solitary confinement at a
disproportionately high rate, pay higher bonds, and face more rejections
for asylum than immigrants from nonmajority Black countries;
Whereas a recent report from Human Rights Watch reveals that Cameroonian
authorities, including police, paramilitary officers (gendarmes),
military personnel, and other Cameroonian state actors have subjected
returned deportees, and family members of those deportees, to serious
human rights violations to punish them for fleeing, including rape,
torture, physical abuse, extortion, arbitrary arrest and detention, and
inhuman and degrading treatment in detention;
Whereas this aforementioned report by Human Rights Watch further indicates that,
upon the arrival of deported migrants back in Cameroon, Cameroonian
authorities have confiscated the identity documents of these Cameroonian
citizens in an attempt to contain, monitor, and possibly arrest these
individuals at a later date on fabricated charges;
Whereas section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act grants the
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security the authority to
establish parole programs for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant
public benefits (``Special Humanitarian Parole''); and
Whereas since the creation of the Humanitarian Parole process in the 1950's, the
United States Government has successfully established over 120 different
programmatic or categorical parole programs to address the circumstances
of deserving, at-risk immigrant populations from nations in Europe,
Asia, and Central and South America, but has never created such a
program for any of the fifty-four African nations in the program's 70-
year history, raising concerns of anti-Blackness and anti-Africanness in
the United States historical immigration policy that deserve to be
addressed and corrected: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) recognizes the dire and ongoing humanitarian crisis for
Cameroonian migrants that are fleeing violence and widespread
human rights violations in their home nation, in addition to
the discriminatory treatment often faced by Black and African
immigrants;
(2) calls on the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the
authority under section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(d)(5)(A)) to establish a special
humanitarian parole program for Cameroonian nationals who are
seeking refuge in the United States to grant these immigrants
much-deserved humanitarian relief; and
(3) urges the United States Government to allocate
appropriate resources to assist in the successful resettlement
of Cameroonian immigrants, including comprehensive support for
Cameroonians benefitting from Special Humanitarian Parole
status.
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