119-hres378

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 378 Introduced in House

    (IH) ]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
H. RES. 378

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the plight of 
Cameroonian immigrants and the continued turmoil and instability in the 
 nation of Cameroon merits a designation of humanitarian parole and 
calling on the Department of Homeland Security to create a humanitarian 
 parole program for Cameroonians fleeing this violence.

_______________________________________________________________________

 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 May 5, 2025

 Mr. Espaillat (for himself, Mr. Ivey, Mr. McGovern, Mr. Cleaver, Ms. 
Adams, Ms. Pingree, and Ms. Castor of Florida) submitted the following 
 resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and 
 in addition to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for a period to be 
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration 
 of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
 concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

 RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the plight of 
Cameroonian immigrants and the continued turmoil and instability in the 
 nation of Cameroon merits a designation of humanitarian parole and 
calling on the Department of Homeland Security to create a humanitarian 
 parole program for Cameroonians fleeing this violence.

Whereas Cameroon is experiencing five simultaneous ethno-armed conflicts that 
 have coalesced into a severe humanitarian crisis, as identified by the 
 United Nations and other international organizations, which includes the 
 Anglophone Crisis, the Boko Haram insurgency, socioeconomic clashes 
 between herders, fishers, and farmers, state-sanctioned violence, and 
 the conflict spillover from the Central African Republic;
Whereas each conflict has led to significant loss of life, displacement, and 
 human rights violations;
Whereas the Anglophone Crisis in the Northwest and Southwest Regions began in 
 2016 with protests by teachers and lawyers against the appointment of 
 local officials that challenged the Anglophone region's sense of 
 autonomy and escalated into an armed separatist movement seeking 
 independence for an unrecognized state called ``Ambazonia'', and over 
 4,000 civilians have been killed, more than 600,000 people have been 
 internally displaced, and over 70,000 have fled to Nigeria;
Whereas educational institutions remain targets of violence, affecting over 
 500,000 children, and the local economy has collapsed due to insecurity;
Whereas the Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North Region has persisted since 
 2014, with Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa launching deadly attacks on 
 villages and civilians;
Whereas these foreign terrorist organizations are responsible for more than 
 3,000 deaths in the Lake Chad Basin, their terror has displaced over 
 250,000 individuals, and the insurgents engage in mass abductions, 
 suicide bombings, and forced marriages, terrorizing communities and 
 exacerbating insecurity in the region;
Whereas the farmer-herder and fisher-herder clashes are driven by climate change 
 and land and water scarcity, are exacerbated by religious strife between 
 Muslim, Christian, and Traditional Spiritualist communities, and entire 
 villages and religious sites have been destroyed, worsening 
 intercommunal relations;
Whereas the political crisis affects the entire country, with President Paul 
 Biya maintaining power since 1982, and suppressing any political 
 opposition;
Whereas concerns over President Biya's age, declining health, and ability to 
 govern have intensified political instability, and security forces have 
 carried out arbitrary arrests, cracked down on opposition figures, 
 violated human rights, and shut down the internet to silence dissent;
Whereas the conflict spillover from the Central African Republic has 
 destabilized the East and Adamawa Regions due to incursions by armed 
 Seleka and Anti-Balaka militias;
Whereas the influx of refugees and the movement of armed groups across the 
 border have increased violence and criminal activity in these regions, 
 and economic, ethnic, and religious tensions between Cameroonian 
 communities and Central African refugees have escalated, leading to 
 further instability;
Whereas, due to ongoing armed conflict, continued human rights abuses, and other 
 extraordinary and temporary conditions in Cameroon that prevent 
 Cameroonian nationals from safely returning to their country, the 
 Department of Homeland Security designated Cameroon for temporary 
 protected status

    (TPS) in April 2022 and then redesignated and extended 
 TPS for Cameroon in October 2023, providing short-term relief for 
 Cameroonian immigrants who have been continuously residing in the United 
 States since October 5, 2023;
Whereas recent credible reporting suggests that the Trump administration intends 
 to allow the TPS protections applied to Cameroonian nationals to expire 
 in June of this year, which will further exasperate and expand the 
 severity and scope of the harm incurred by the Cameroonian people, and 
 will likely intensify the ongoing security and humanitarian crisis in 
 the West African country;
Whereas Cameroonian immigrants who have fled to Nigeria have previously faced 
 extradition back to Cameroon where they risk an unfair trial and the 
 possibility of torture;
Whereas the journey from Africa to seek refuge in the Western Hemisphere is 
 particularly perilous and occasionally deadly for Cameroonian migrants, 
 as demonstrated in March 2023 when a boat carrying nearly 3 dozen West 
 African immigrants, a majority of whom were Cameroonian migrants en 
 route to the United States Virgin Islands, capsized, killing 3 
 Cameroonians and leading to a search for 13 additional bodies that were 
 never found;
Whereas, in December 2023, the European Union

    (EU) signed a pact to facilitate 
 the deportation of asylum seekers and limit migration to the bloc, 
 leaving Cameroonian migrants fleeing violence or ethnoreligious 
 persecution particularly at risk;
Whereas amid stricter EU immigration policies, Cameroonian asylum seekers are 
 increasingly seeking protection in Latin America and the United States, 
 where they often face intense discrimination, detainment, poor 
 conditions of confinement, and deportation;
Whereas, in the United States, despite only making up around 7 percent of the 
 noncitizen population, Black immigrants represent over 20 percent of 
 those in deportation proceedings on criminal grounds, constituting 
 revealing evidence of the disparate treatment of Black immigrants;
Whereas, in August 2020, Cameroonian detainees at Louisiana's Pine Prairie 
 Immigration and Customs Enforcement

    (ICE) detention center launched 
 their third hunger strike that year to bring attention to their 
 experiences of racism, unwarranted threats, and excessive abuse by ICE 
 officials;
Whereas, although only 6 percent of migrants detained by ICE are Black, 28 
 percent of abuse complaints over a recent 6-year period (2016-2021) were 
 reported by Black detained persons, and nearly half of the calls (43 
 percent) by Black nonbinary-detained persons included reports of abuse;
Whereas immigrants from majority Black countries, such as Cameroon, that are in 
 ICE detention facilities are sent to solitary confinement at a 
 disproportionately high rate, pay higher bonds, and face more rejections 
 for asylum than immigrants from nonmajority Black countries;
Whereas a recent report from Human Rights Watch reveals that Cameroonian 
 authorities, including police, paramilitary officers

    (gendarmes) , 
 military personnel, and other Cameroonian state actors have subjected 
 returned deportees, and family members of those deportees, to serious 
 human rights violations to punish them for fleeing, including rape, 
 torture, physical abuse, extortion, arbitrary arrest and detention, and 
 inhuman and degrading treatment in detention;
Whereas this aforementioned report by Human Rights Watch further indicates that, 
 upon the arrival of deported migrants back in Cameroon, Cameroonian 
 authorities have confiscated the identity documents of these Cameroonian 
 citizens in an attempt to contain, monitor, and possibly arrest these 
 individuals at a later date on fabricated charges;
Whereas 

section 212
            (d) (5)
        (A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act grants the 
 Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security the authority to 
 establish parole programs for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant 
 public benefits (``Special Humanitarian Parole''); and
Whereas, since the creation of the Humanitarian Parole process in the 1950s, the 
 United States Government has successfully established over 120 different 
 programmatic or categorical parole programs to address the circumstances 
 of deserving, at-risk immigrant populations from nations in Europe, 
 Asia, and Central and South America, but has never created such a 
 program for any of the 54 African nations in the program's 70-year 
 history, raising concerns of anti-Blackness and anti-Africanness in the 
 United States historical immigration policy that deserve to be addressed 
 and corrected: Now, therefore, be it
 Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

    (1) recognizes the dire and ongoing humanitarian crisis for 
 Cameroonian migrants that are fleeing violence and widespread 
 human rights violations in their home nation, in addition to 
 the discriminatory treatment often faced by Black and African 
 immigrants;

    (2) calls on the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the 
 authority under 

section 212
            (d) (5)
        (A) of the Immigration and 
 Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182
            (d) (5)
        (A) ) to establish a special 
 humanitarian parole program for Cameroonian nationals who are 
 seeking refuge in the United States to grant these immigrants 
 much-deserved humanitarian relief; and

    (3) urges the United States Government to allocate 
 appropriate resources to assist in the successful resettlement 
 of Cameroonian immigrants, including comprehensive support for 
 Cameroonians benefitting from Special Humanitarian Parole 
 status.
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