Texas 2023 - 88th Regular

Texas House Bill HR2285 Compare Versions

Version 1 (Old)

Version 2 (New)

Old	New	Differences
1	1	88R31044 BPG-D
2	2	By: Garcia H.R. No. 2285
3	3
4	4
5	5	R E S O L U T I O N
6	6	WHEREAS, Cameroonians have been granted Temporary Protected
7	7	Status by the Department of Homeland Security in recognition of the
8	8	dire humanitarian crisis in their home country, but stronger
9	9	protections are desperately needed; and
10	10	WHEREAS, For more than a decade, Cameroon has been riven by
11	11	terrorism and armed conflicts; desperate people have fled to South
12	12	American countries and then made the perilous trek north through
13	13	Central America to Mexico's border with the United States; there,
14	14	they have been met with harsh prejudice, leading them to initiate
15	15	several protests at immigration processing centers in Tapachula and
16	16	Tijuana; and
17	17	WHEREAS, In the United States, following their Credible Fear
18	18	Interviews, Cameroonians have faced asylum denial rates
19	19	disproportionately higher than those of migrants from other
20	20	backgrounds; hundreds of Cameroonian asylum seekers have been
21	21	summarily deported from immigration jails, separating them from
22	22	their families still in the United States; some of those deported
23	23	were key witnesses in cases of human rights abuses while in U.S.
24	24	Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention; now caught in a
25	25	homeland torn between the repressive Francophone government and an
26	26	Anglophone separatist movement, they are more imperiled than ever
27	27	by their status as Anglophones officially designated as deportees;
28	28	and
29	29	WHEREAS, Cameroonians in U.S. detention have endured
30	30	terrible hardships and maltreatment, documented by such human
31	31	rights organizations as the Cameroon American Council; at the Don
32	32	Hutto immigration detention facility in Texas, 140 Cameroonian
33	33	women were being held in ice-cold, cramped, and unsanitary cells,
34	34	an environment that has caused outbreaks of influenza, scabies, and
35	35	other diseases; many Cameroonian migrant women in detention have
36	36	experienced horrifying medical negligence and abuse; at the Irwin
37	37	County Detention Center in Georgia, dozens of women were
38	38	unwillingly or unwittingly subjected to medical procedures of
39	39	dubious necessity; two of these migrants, Pauline Binam and
40	40	Josephine Lawong Kinaka, were transferred to Texas by Immigrations
41	41	and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings; following
42	42	intervention by members of Congress, Ms. Binam was released and
43	43	reunited with her parents and daughter in Maryland; despite having
44	44	family in Chicago, Ms. Kinaka was ultimately deported, along with
45	45	another Irwin County victim, Noela Sala, whose family also lives in
46	46	the U.S.; and
47	47	WHEREAS, The Department of Homeland Security has established
48	48	special humanitarian parole programs to address the circumstances
49	49	of particularly at-risk populations; Ukrainians were offered swift
50	50	accommodation following the Russian invasion, and certain
51	51	nationals of such countries as Afghanistan, Cuba, Guatemala, El
52	52	Salvador, and Honduras currently benefit; no Africans have been
53	53	granted such relief, however, raising serious questions of racial
54	54	discrimination and bias against people from the continent; and
55	55	WHEREAS, In order to redeem its reputation as an
56	56	international defender of human rights and atone for the abuses
57	57	suffered by Cameroonians in our broken immigration system, the
58	58	Department of Homeland Security should grant Special Humanitarian
59	59	Parole allowing refugees from violence and oppression in Cameroon
60	60	to at last find safety and reunite with family members in the U.S.;
61	61	now, therefore, be it
62	62	RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 88th Texas
63	63	Legislature hereby respectfully urge President Joseph R. Biden and
64	64	Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to take immediate
65	65	action to provide a Special Humanitarian Parole program for
66	66	Cameroonian refugees; and, be it further
67	67	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
68	68	copies of this resolution to the president of the United States and
69	69	to the secretary of the United States Department of Homeland
70	70	Security.