Thread by @hebagowayed

Joy, a Cameroonian asylum seeker just gave this testimony at @EspacioMigrante on the impact of #Title42 on her.

Please read & amplify her voice:

The life of an immigrant is not a choice. I don’t know if I can call it bad or good luck, but it is the destiny of some people. 1

I traveled more than sixteen months to reach Tijuana. On my travel, I saw many people killed, I saw racism, I was personally attacked by discriminating and racist people. 2

I arrived in Tijuana and I registered  to wait on the asylum list. My number was 4,777. At the same moment the border was closed due to the covid pandemic. I became stranded. 3

I tried to give my time, my services, to help other people in the street who were also stranded due to the covid 19 pandemic. 4

But, after that, seeing no other choice, I decided to try to cross the border myself. I had not seen my children for almost two years, and I needed to secure a safe life for them. They were still in my country where there is a war. 5

I tried to cross the same day that President Biden became the president of the United States.  I succeeded to cross. But, because of Title 42 I was sent back. After all of my suffering, after fleeing my country which has a war and after being imprisoned there, I was sent back. 6

I’ll never forget that day, because it was my day of hope. I was hopeful for a new beginning, a new everything. But it turned into a day of darkness, a tragic day, because I was brought back across the border. I was not allowed to ask for asylum, which is my right as a refugee.7

Today we are here because Title 42 remains. I am asking for my asylum case to be heard, and for the asylum cases of so many other people who have suffered like me and who deserve that their stories are heard too. Who deserve a chance at a better life and a new beginning 8

All the people are the same, the life of one immigrant is not different than another immigrant. The immigrant life doesn’t know color, it doesn’t know legal status, it doesn’t know country of origin. We have all suffered. 9

Yet, Ukrainians have been allowed to cross, while I and many others have been here for three years and have not been able to cross. We deserve a chance at a better life too. 10