Wilfred Tebah doesn’t blame the US for quickly providing humanitarian protection to Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s devastating invasion of their homeland.
But the 27-year-old, who fled Cameroon amid the ongoing conflict, can’t help but wonder what would happen if the millions fleeing this eastern European country were of a different colour.
As the US prepares to take in tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war, the country continues to deport scores of African and Caribbean refugees back to unstable and violent homelands, where they have faced rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and other ill-treatment.
“They don’t care about a black man,” said the Columbus, Ohio resident, referring to US politicians. “The difference is really clear. They know what is happening over there and they have decided to close their eyes and ears.”
Tebah’s concerns echo protests against the hasty deportation of Haitian refugees who crossed the border this summer without an opportunity to seek asylum, not to mention the chilly reception of African and Middle Eastern refugees in western Europe by comparison, how these nations have enthusiastically received displaced Ukrainians.
When President Joe Biden made a series of announcements in March welcoming 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, granting temporary protective status to another 30,000 already in the US and halting Ukrainian deportations, two Democratic lawmakers seized the moment to make similar statements to call for humanitarian considerations for Haitians.
“There is every reason to express the same level of sympathy,” US Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Mondaire Jones of New York wrote to the government, noting that more than 20,000 Haitians were expelled despite continued instability after the assassination Haitian President and a strong earthquake this summer.
Cameroonian lawyers have similarly raised their calls for humanitarian assistance, protesting this month outside the Washington residence of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the offices of top congressmen.
Their calls come as hundreds of thousands across Cameroon have been displaced in recent years by the country’s civil war between its French-speaking government and English-speaking separatists, attacks by the terrorist group Boko Haram and other regional conflicts.
Advocacy group Human Rights Watch noted in a February report that many Cameroonians deported from the United States faced persecution and human rights abuses upon their return.
Tebah, who is a senior member of the Cameroon American Council, an advocacy group organizing protests this month, said it was a fate he hoped to avoid.
Hailing from the country’s English-speaking north-west, he said he was branded a separatist and arrested by the government for his activism as a college student. Tebah said he managed to flee, like many Cameroonians, by flying to Latin America, trekking overland to the US-Mexico border and applying for asylum in 2019.
“I’m being held in prison, tortured and even killed if I’m deported,” he said. “I’m very afraid. As a person, my life also counts.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees TPS and other humanitarian programs, declined to respond to complaints about racism in American immigration policies. It also declined to say whether it was considering granting TPS to Cameroonians or other African nationals, saying only in a written statement that it would “continue to monitor conditions in various countries.”
However, the agency noted that it recently issued TPS designations for Haiti, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan – all African or Caribbean nations – as well as more than 75,000 Afghans residing in the US following the Taliban takeover of that Central Asian nation . Haitians are among the largest and longest-serving beneficiaries of TPS, with more than 40,000 currently in that status.
Other TPS countries include Burma, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, and the majority of the nearly 320,000 immigrants with temporary protection status are from El Salvador.
Lisa Parisio, who helped found Catholics Against Racism in Immigration, argues that the program could easily help protect millions more refugees from danger, but has historically been underutilized and over-politicized.
TPS, which issues a work permit and prevents deportation for up to 18 months, has no limits on how many countries or people can be placed on it, said Parisio, the Catholic Legal Immigration Network’s advocacy director.
However, former President Donald Trump, in his broader effort to restrict immigration, has reduced TPS and phased out designations for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea in West Africa.
While programs like TPS offer critical protection to vulnerable refugees, they can also leave many in legal limbo for years without offering a path to citizenship, said Karla Morales, a 24-year-old from El Salvador who has been on TPS most of her life .
“It’s absurd to think of 20 years in this country as temporary,” said the nursing student at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. “We need reassurance that the work we’ve done is appreciated and that our lives have value.”
At least in the case of Ukraine, Biden seems motivated by broader foreign policy goals in Europe rather than racial bias, suggests María Cristina García, a history professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who focuses on refugees and immigrants.
But Tom Wong, founding director of the US Immigration Policy Center at the University of California, San Diego, said the racial differences couldn’t be clearer.
“The US has responded without hesitation by extending humanitarian protection to mostly white and European refugees,” he said. “Meanwhile, predominantly black people from Africa, the Middle East and Asia continue to languish.”
Alongside Cameroon, pro-immigrant advocates also argue that Congo and Ethiopia should be eligible for humanitarian aid because of their ongoing conflicts, as should Mauritania because slavery is still practiced there.
And they complain that Ukrainian asylum-seekers are being exempted from asylum restrictions designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19, while asylum-seekers from other nations are being turned away.
“Black pain and black suffering don’t get the same attention,” says Sylvie Bello, founder of the DC-based Cameroon American Council. “The same anti-blackness that permeates American life also permeates American immigration policies.”
Vera Arnot, a Ukrainian in Boston who is considering seeking TPS, says she didn’t know much about special status before the war started and was unaware of the concerns of black immigrants. But the sophomore at Berklee College of Music is hoping the relief can be extended to other deserving nations.
Arnot says TPS could help her find a better-paying job off campus so she doesn’t depend on her family for support, since most in Ukraine have lost their jobs due to the war.
“Ukrainians as a people are not used to relying on others,” she said. “We want to work. We do not want welfare.”
For Tebah, who lives with relatives in Ohio, TPS would make it easier for him to open a bank account, get a driver’s license and find better employment while awaiting a decision on his asylum case.
“We will keep begging, pleading,” Tebah said. “We are in danger. I want to emphasize it. And only TPS for Cameroon will help us get out of this danger. It is very necessary.”
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Associated Press video journalist Patrick Orsagos in Columbus, Ohio contributed to this story.