Washington, DC – Slavery, land grabbing, police violence, extortion, and language and political repression in Mauritania is rampant. U.S. deportations to Mauritania have resulted in the detention, torture, extortion, and statelessness of long-term U.S. residents.
Diaspora leaders and 87 organizations are calling for an immediate designation of Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure for Mauritania, due to the treatment of deported refugees and violations of human rights occuring there on a daily basis. Today, they delivered a letter to the Biden administration demanding immediate action.
They write:
Considering the extreme nature of the entwined human rights and humanitarian crises in Mauritania, an immediate designation of either TPS or DED is warranted and necessary to protect vulnerable Mauritanians in the United States and to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives. Country conditions outlined in this letter and in numerous State Department reports have satisfied TPS designations for other nations. We demand fairness and equity for all people in need of humanitarian protections, and oppose all forms of racial bias and anti-Blackness in the TPS decision making process. With a TPS designation for Mauritania, the United States has the opportunity to send a clear message to the world that it condemns the practice of slavery, and that people who are victims of forced statelessness must be protected.
Houleye Thiam, President of MNHRUS, said: “Dictators are weapons of mass destruction. Black Mauritanians aren’t leaving their homes, families, and lives to go on an adventure. They are fleeing to survive, running from a country where Black people are oppressed, enslaved, denied citizenship, attacked, and killed simply for being Black. We need emergency and permanent protection today.”=
In 2018 the Trump administration terminated Mauritania’s trade preferences under the African Growth and Opportunity Act due to its abhorrent record combating slavery. The administration also increased deportations to this country, sending parents and spouses of U.S. citizens back to the oppressors they fled.
This summer, more than seventy people expressed opposition to reinstating Mauritania’s AGOA benefits in a group comment for a federal register notice on the topic. The comment was filed by Samba Sow of Columbus, who wrote: ”The Mauritanian government continues to fail to address forced labor and slavery, fails to uphold the rule of law, and engages in violations of internationally recognized human rights. Therefore, it fails to meet the requirements for AGOA eligibility and should remain suspended in 2023.”
The Mauritanian diaspora is also demanding accountability for leaders who carried out the genocide that forced many to flee for their lives in the first place. On July 27, many will gather outside of the Embassy of Qatar in Washington, DC in protest of their harboring of war criminal Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya. They want him extradited to Brussels to finally face, in court, the family members of his victims he killed.
Read the complete NGO letter and AGOA comment.
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