Deportations by Trump administration decried
by Darla Carter | Presbyterian News Service
Many people have been displaced by the Anglophone crisis in Cameroon. (Photo by Valéry Nodem)
LOUISVILLE — The Washington office of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is calling on the public to rally behind Cameroonians being deported from the United States to dangerous situations in their homeland.
The Office of Public Witness issued an Action Alert Monday asking the public to urge their representatives of Congress to co-sponsor and pass a resolution urging the United States to uphold its international commitments regarding refugees and asylum seekers and halt deportations of Camerooanian citizens.
There has been an escalation of violence and human rights abuses in Cameroon over the past year by Cameroonian military and separatist groups during the Anglophone crisis. It’s prompted many Cameroonians to flee to the United States.
Many Cameroonians enter the United States through the Mexico border and wind up in detention centers, where some reportedly have been tortured and forced to sign deportation papers, according to the Action Alert.
“Despite the U.S. government’s recognition of the widespread human rights abuses committed by the Cameroonian government, the Trump administration is deporting many African asylum seekers, sending ‘death planes’ full of asylum seekers back to Cameroon,” according to the Alert.
The deportations are troubling because many of the refugees seeking asylum in America are activists with Anglophone opposition groups in Cameroon or civilians from Anglophone regions targeted by opposition groups.
“When refugees arrive in Cameroon, security forces often arrest them as soon as they land, taking them to high-security prisons where they are not heard from again,” according to the Alert. “In the past month and a half, 93 Cameroonians have been deported, some with appeals on asylum still pending.”
OPW is urging the public to monitor the situation and support a rapid resolution of the conflict in Cameroon, noting that Matthew 25 calls Christians to welcome strangers.
Presbyterians are being asked to contact their elected officials over upholding U.S. commitments regarding refugees and asylum — in this case Cameroonians.
The Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PC(USA), issued a call for prayer Nov. 5 for Cameroon. He placed special emphasis on the impact of the country’s upheaval and violence on school children, teachers and learning.
According to UNICEF, 81 percent of the children were out of school during the 2019–2020 academic year in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon, according to Herbert’s statement, which also noted that violence in that part of the country has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
“Our partners in Cameroon ask Presbyterians in the U.S.A. to pray for the protection and safe return of those abducted; for comfort and healing for those traumatized by attacks on schools, homes, and villages; and for justice, peace, and reconciliation in Cameroon,” Herbert stated last month.
“Please pray that Cameroon’s public officials, judicial officers, and social influencers will speak and act justly, wisely, and compassionately with the goal of restoring unity and cooperation so that all Cameroonians may enjoy fully their civil and human rights.”
You can read the Washington office’s full Action Alert here. The Office of Public Witness is one of the Compassion, Peace and Justice ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.
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