Friend,
We've just filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit
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demanding information about the U.S. government's wrongful
deportation of asylum seekers to Cameroon in late 2020. The lawsuit
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, filed in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights and
Project South, builds on previous requests for information that the
U.S. government has disregarded.
In the year since the Cameroonians were unjustly sent away, numerous
reports
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of abuse during the deportation process have come to light. Our
lawsuit is part of an effort to hold the U.S. government accountable
for its brutal treatment of Black immigrants (in this and other
instances) - and to protect these immigrants from further harm.
What happened in this case? Here's a quick overview, including a
basic summary of the situation in Cameroon:
* Cameroon, a nation in west-central Africa home to 26 million
people, is in the midst of a civil war that has displaced some
700,000 people and inflicted widespread suffering on civilians.
The war is a legacy of colonialism. After World War I, France
and Great Britain divided up the country. A century later,
tensions run high between the country's Francophone
majority and Anglophone minority - and when Anglophone
rebels declared independence in 2017, those tensions exploded
into war.
* Members of Cameroon's English-speaking minority face
extreme, life-threatening peril at home. And yet U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) saw fit to deport two
planes' worth of English-speaking Cameroonian asylum
seekers last year.
* Since those flights, numerous reports have indicated that ICE
officials used pepper spray and other forms of abuse to force
those asylum seekers to sign their own deportation orders.
"When they arrived, they pepper sprayed me in the eyes
... and strangled me almost to the point of death,"
said one asylum seeker
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. "As a result of the physical violence, they were able to
forcibly obtain my fingerprint on the document."
* Of the 60 Cameroonian asylum seekers deported on one flight, at
least six filed a complaint before they were deported, alleging
that ICE officials tortured
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them for refusing to sign travel documents that would have
facilitated their deportation. At least one other individual
reported being subjected to an invasive gynecological procedure
without full consent.
* The dangerous conditions in Cameroon have spurred calls to
provide the 40,000 Cameroonian refugees in the U.S. with
Temporary Protected Status
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. Yesterday, a group of House members introduced a bill
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that would do just that.
* The original FOIA requests that have, so far, been disregarded
by the U.S. government sought demographic data and internal
communications concerning the deportation of Cameroonian
immigrants between August 1, 2020, and February 26, 2021. In
that period, immigration advocacy groups filed two civil rights
complaints
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detailing ICE's violent and coercive tactics
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against Cameroonian asylum seekers. The complaints remain
unresolved.
Our FOIA lawsuit demands the government respond to our requests for
information.
"Especially after the events of the last month [when photos of
border patrol agents brutally rounding up Haitian refugees were widely
published], there is no doubt that Black immigrants are
disproportionately subject to harm and abuse by our immigration
system," said Luz Lopez, a senior supervising attorney with the
SPLC. "This is why it is more important now than ever that the
abuses these Black immigrants suffered, as a result of these
deportations, are not simply swept under the rug. There must be
transparency and the truth must come out in order to prevent future
similar abuses."
You can read the full complaint here
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, or visit our website
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to learn more about our Immigrant Justice work.
In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
DONATE
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