Tomorrow, for the second time in under a month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are planning to deport a group of Cameroonian asylum seekers back into an active war zone where they face imminent persecution and death.
Even as the Trump administration has consistently demonstrated its racist antipathy to African and other Black migrants, in recent months we have witnessed a dramatic escalation of its anti-immigrant policies.
Hundreds of Cameroonians and other African asylum seekers have been deported to countries with ongoing internal conflicts.
Human rights organizations have documented a harrowing, violent, and escalating conflict in Cameroon and a culture of impunity that promotes persecution and killing that extends to those who had sought refuge in the U.S. under international law.
These mass deportations are reckless, inhumane—and unlawful.
BREAKING: In a settlement to a major federal lawsuit, ICE has agreed not to deport the immigrant activists who sued the agency after suffering retaliatory arrests, and to instruct officers not to target people “for exercising First Amendment rights.”
Immigrant farmworkers with Vermont-based human rights organization @MigrantJustice led a march today to Burlington’s federal courthouse to claim victory and file the settlement in Migrant Justice v. Wolf.
“The actions of ICE against Migrant Justice and its members cannot be divorced from the federal government's, including ICE and other enforcement agencies’, disgraceful history of unlawfully targeting, surveilling, and disrupting grassroots movements.”
BREAKING: Along with @civilrightsorg & 79 other civil rights groups, we urged President Trump and Acting Secretary Wolf to immediately provide the maximum protection possible through a Deferred Enforced Departure or Temporary Protected Status designation for Cameroonians.
The move is necessary to ensure that the United States does not return anyone to a country, like Cameroon, that has become temporarily unsafe for its residents.
We call on Trump and Wolf to honor the foundational American values of offering safety and security to those in need by granting the designation right away.
Offering help, safety, and security to those in need is foundational to U.S. values.
Last night, we asked a federal court to vacate the conviction and life-without-parole sentence of Ahmed Abu Ali in light of new evidence stemming from the Saudi government’s cover-up of the torture and murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
In 2003, when he was a 22-year-old university student, Mr. Abu Ali was detained by officers of the “Mabahith,” a secret domestic police agency in Saudi Arabia—the same agency involved in the murder and cover-up of Khashoggi.
During interrogations by the agency, Abu Ali “confessed” under torture to involvement in a Saudi Al Qaeda cell, which later served as the basis for his U.S. prosecution.