Bill Text: TX HR2285 | 2023-2024 | 88th Legislature | Introduced
Bill Title: Urging President Joseph R. Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to take immediate action to provide Special Humanitarian Parole for Cameroonian refugees.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2023-05-24 - Filed [HR2285 Detail]
Download: Texas-2023-HR2285-Introduced.html
| 88R31044 BPG-D | ||
| By: Garcia | H.R. No. 2285 | |
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| WHEREAS, Cameroonians have been granted Temporary Protected | ||
| Status by the Department of Homeland Security in recognition of the | ||
| dire humanitarian crisis in their home country, but stronger | ||
| protections are desperately needed; and | ||
| WHEREAS, For more than a decade, Cameroon has been riven by | ||
| terrorism and armed conflicts; desperate people have fled to South | ||
| American countries and then made the perilous trek north through | ||
| Central America to Mexico's border with the United States; there, | ||
| they have been met with harsh prejudice, leading them to initiate | ||
| several protests at immigration processing centers in Tapachula and | ||
| Tijuana; and | ||
| WHEREAS, In the United States, following their Credible Fear | ||
| Interviews, Cameroonians have faced asylum denial rates | ||
| disproportionately higher than those of migrants from other | ||
| backgrounds; hundreds of Cameroonian asylum seekers have been | ||
| summarily deported from immigration jails, separating them from | ||
| their families still in the United States; some of those deported | ||
| were key witnesses in cases of human rights abuses while in U.S. | ||
| Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention; now caught in a | ||
| homeland torn between the repressive Francophone government and an | ||
| Anglophone separatist movement, they are more imperiled than ever | ||
| by their status as Anglophones officially designated as deportees; | ||
| and | ||
| WHEREAS, Cameroonians in U.S. detention have endured | ||
| terrible hardships and maltreatment, documented by such human | ||
| rights organizations as the Cameroon American Council; at the Don | ||
| Hutto immigration detention facility in Texas, 140 Cameroonian | ||
| women were being held in ice-cold, cramped, and unsanitary cells, | ||
| an environment that has caused outbreaks of influenza, scabies, and | ||
| other diseases; many Cameroonian migrant women in detention have | ||
| experienced horrifying medical negligence and abuse; at the Irwin | ||
| County Detention Center in Georgia, dozens of women were | ||
| unwillingly or unwittingly subjected to medical procedures of | ||
| dubious necessity; two of these migrants, Pauline Binam and | ||
| Josephine Lawong Kinaka, were transferred to Texas by Immigrations | ||
| and Customs Enforcement for deportation proceedings; following | ||
| intervention by members of Congress, Ms. Binam was released and | ||
| reunited with her parents and daughter in Maryland; despite having | ||
| family in Chicago, Ms. Kinaka was ultimately deported, along with | ||
| another Irwin County victim, Noela Sala, whose family also lives in | ||
| the U.S.; and | ||
| WHEREAS, The Department of Homeland Security has established | ||
| special humanitarian parole programs to address the circumstances | ||
| of particularly at-risk populations; Ukrainians were offered swift | ||
| accommodation following the Russian invasion, and certain | ||
| nationals of such countries as Afghanistan, Cuba, Guatemala, El | ||
| Salvador, and Honduras currently benefit; no Africans have been | ||
| granted such relief, however, raising serious questions of racial | ||
| discrimination and bias against people from the continent; and | ||
| WHEREAS, In order to redeem its reputation as an | ||
| international defender of human rights and atone for the abuses | ||
| suffered by Cameroonians in our broken immigration system, the | ||
| Department of Homeland Security should grant Special Humanitarian | ||
| Parole allowing refugees from violence and oppression in Cameroon | ||
| to at last find safety and reunite with family members in the U.S.; | ||
| now, therefore, be it | ||
| RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 88th Texas | ||
| Legislature hereby respectfully urge President Joseph R. Biden and | ||
| Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to take immediate | ||
| action to provide a Special Humanitarian Parole program for | ||
| Cameroonian refugees; and, be it further | ||
| RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official | ||
| copies of this resolution to the president of the United States and | ||
| to the secretary of the United States Department of Homeland | ||
| Security. | ||
