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.