Dear John,

A February 2022 Human Rights Watch report documents that 13 of the estimated 80 to 90 Cameroonians deported on flights in late 2020 were tortured, physically or sexually abused, or assaulted by state agents. Cameroonian authorities targeted the families of deported people. In seven cases HRW documented, state agents beat, abducted, detained, harassed, and in one case reportedly killed, relatives in connection with deportees’ returns.

Call your Senators. Call your Congressional Representative. Contact the White House through this email form. Tell them that Cameroonians present in this country must be granted Temporary Protected Status NOW.

Migrants from Cameroon flee both ongoing conflicts between Anglophone separatists and the government forces and violence from armed Boko Haram groups in the north. Tens of thousands of Cameroonian refugees have fled the country. A few thousand reached the United States, where they have often been imprisoned before having their pleas denied—and then being deported. Esther is one of the deportees interviewed by Human Rights Watch:

“After the United States rejected her asylum claim and deported her in October 2020, Esther, a Cameroonian woman, found herself trapped in a nightmare in the country she had previously fled. ‘I was arrested and detained [by gendarmes]… I was raped. I was well [seriously] beaten, I was tortured, I lived mostly on bread,’ she said. ‘They said we are the people that have gone out and spoiled the name of the country… so I have to pay for it dearly.’…

“Human Rights Watch research shows that US authorities not only sent Cameroonians back to harm, but also subjected them to serious human rights violations in US immigration detention, failed to fairly adjudicate many of their cases, and failed to protect confidential asylum documents, which were confiscated by their government. For these reasons, US deportations of Cameroonian asylum seekers violated US obligations under international human rights and refugee law….

“Human Rights Watch found that Cameroonian authorities have, between 2019 and 2021, subjected returned deportees and members of their families to serious human rights violations including rape, torture and other physical abuse, arbitrary arrest and detention, inhuman and degrading treatment in detention, extortion, and threats. Perpetrators included police, gendarmes, and military personnel, among other officials and state agents.”

The United States is still deporting people back to Cameroon. The quickest way to stop deportations is through Temporary Protected Status for Cameroonians in this country.

ILCM has signed on to a letter to President Biden, signed by hundreds of organizations, demanding protection for Cameroonians. You can read that letter here.

In solidarity,