88R31044 BPG-D

By: Garcia H.R. No. 2285

R E S O L U T I O N

WHEREAS, Cameroonians have been granted Temporary Protected Status by the Department of Homeland Security in recognition of the dire humanitarian crisis in their home country, but stronger protections are desperately needed; and

WHEREAS, For more than a decade, Cameroon has been riven by terrorism and armed conflicts; desperate people have fled to South American countries and then made the perilous trek north through Central America to Mexico's border with the United States; there, they have been met with harsh prejudice, leading them to initiate several protests at immigration processing centers in Tapachula and Tijuana; and

WHEREAS, In the United States, following their Credible Fear Interviews, Cameroonians have faced asylum denial rates disproportionately higher than those of migrants from other backgrounds; hundreds of Cameroonian asylum seekers have been summarily deported from immigration jails, separating them from their families still in the United States; some of those deported were key witnesses in cases of human rights abuses while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention; now caught in a homeland torn between the repressive Francophone government and an Anglophone separatist movement, they are more imperiled than ever by their status as Anglophones officially designated as deportees; and

WHEREAS, Cameroonians in U.S. detention have endured terrible hardships and maltreatment, documented by such human rights organizations as the Cameroon American Council; at the Don Hutto immigration detention facility in Texas, 140 Cameroonian women were being held in ice-cold, cramped, and unsanitary cells, an environment that has caused outbreaks of influenza, scabies, and other diseases; many Cameroonian migrant women in detention have experienced horrifying medical negligence and abuse; at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, dozens of women were unwillingly or unwittingly subjected to medical procedures of dubious necessity; two of these migrants, Pauline Binam and Josephine Lawong Kinaka, were transferred to Texas by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings; following intervention by members of Congress, Ms. Binam was released and reunited with her parents and daughter in Maryland; despite having family in Chicago, Ms. Kinaka was ultimately deported, along with another Irwin County victim, Noela Sala, whose family also lives in the U.S.; and

WHEREAS, The Department of Homeland Security has established special humanitarian parole programs to address the circumstances of particularly at-risk populations; Ukrainians were offered swift accommodation following the Russian invasion, and certain nationals of such countries as Afghanistan, Cuba, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras currently benefit; no Africans have been granted such relief, however, raising serious questions of racial discrimination and bias against people from the continent; and

WHEREAS, In order to redeem its reputation as an international defender of human rights and atone for the abuses suffered by Cameroonians in our broken immigration system, the Department of Homeland Security should grant Special Humanitarian Parole allowing refugees from violence and oppression in Cameroon to at last find safety and reunite with family members in the U.S.; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 88th Texas Legislature hereby respectfully urge President Joseph R. Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to take immediate action to provide a Special Humanitarian Parole program for Cameroonian refugees; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official copies of this resolution to the president of the United States and to the secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security.