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.