Watch the webinar here.
Washington, DC — Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Department of Homeland Security was considering designating Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Mauritania more than two years ago. This move would save lives and has bipartisan support. Instead, the Biden administration is deporting Black Mauritanians to danger. One charter deportation flight departed for Mauritania, a country with one of the highest rates of slavery in the world, in July, and another is being planned for August. Black Mauritanian leaders and others who have been calling for TPS for Mauritania for years outlined their reasons in a webinar.
Zeinabou Sall, Mauritanian Network for Human Rights, said “Black Mauritanians are victims of an ethnic cleansing. They’re not leaving for a ‘better life,’ they’re leaving because the country is impossible to live in. The government wants this to be an Arab country. For Black people, the only options are slavery and apartheid. The Trump administration started deporting people back there and they were put in jail. The same thing will happen now. Jail and torture. And some will be sent right back into slavery. We can’t do this. We need TPS for Mauritanians now.”
Dr. Seydi Sarr, ABISA and Black Immigrants Bail Fund asked, “How do we, as a society, continue to dehumanize Black people and Black bodies? How are we comfortable saying that we’re gonna send you back to a system where you could be enslaved, and where your civil liberties are going to be gone, indefinitely? Where you don’t have citizenship anymore, because you weren’t here during the Census. So now you’re not a citizen.”
Mauritania has rendered many Black Mauritanians who lived in the U.S. for decades stateless. When they are deported, they are frequently arrested, jailed, interrogated, and extorted. Because they are not considered citizens, they are unable to get identity documents, which makes them also unable to work, and subject to constant police harassment.
Added Haddy Gassama, UndocuBlack Network, “This is the longest TPS campaign many of our organizations have worked on; a stark difference from the TPS designation for countries like Ukraine, which received TPS within a week of the conflict starting. The United States had a long standing policy of not deporting Mauritanians because of the country’s well documented record of human rights abuses, which include the practice of enslaving Black people and maintaining an apartheid regime. For these reasons both the Bush and Obama administrations did not deport most Mauritanians. This changed when Trump came into office, and his administration decided to prioritize detaining and deporting Mauritanians who’ve lived in the U.S. for decades.”
Gassama continued, “As a response to Trump’s cruel agenda, our organizations came together to create the TPS for Mauritania campaign. The fact that the Biden administration is following in Trump’s footsteps in deporting Mauritanians is disheartening but not surprising. This recent stint of deportations is just the latest in the administration’s string of anti-Black immigration policies. But it is not too late for Biden to change course and clean up his record of anti-Blackness by designating TPS for Mauritania.”
During the webinar, Black Mauritanian leaders and advocates talked about what the men and women being detained and deported have fled, how the Biden administration is failing to provide them with fair access to asylum; what they face upon return; and why designating TPS for Mauritania is needed to save lives and correspond with this administration’s stated goal of a anti-racism and a fair and humane immigration system.
Daniel Tse, Haitian Bridge Alliance and Black Immigrants Bail Fund asked, “Why are others being given fair treatment and opportunities and the carpet has been rolled to them when they are fleeing outrageous conditions, but our own communities always have to struggle? We always have to battle. We just want access to freedom, our languages, a fair process, but the system always reacts to the concerns of Black people with a lot of reluctance, a lot of hesitation, and our people continue to die and suffer every day in detention.”
Added Tse, “ I speak from the heart about these issues because I know what it feels like, I’ve been locked up in these spaces for a long period of time and I know how exactly it feels.”
My Khanh Ngo with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project described how detention and lack of access to correct language interpreters is making it impossible for refugees from Mauritania to obtain asylum. “The vast majority of the Mauritanian asylum seekers speak languages like Pulaar Mauritanian, and many are not fully literate precisely because of the discrimination that they face in their country. But they have to fill out these applications in English and submit their proof in English as well to immigration judges who do not have the right cultural context and understanding of what’s happening in this country,” she explained.
“Despite the clear regulations and agency policies that say they must provide interpretation in their preferred language, we know that people are being forced through credible fear interviews as well as hearings and immigration court in other languages like French, Arabic, and English, which leads to misunderstanding. People are not able to fully participate in their own removal cases because of these language barriers. And this seriously prejudices not only their asylum case but also leads to wrongful removal orders,” continued Ngo.
In closing, Dr. Sarr said: “We understand that every community has a crisis ongoing, or a crisis about to happen, or they have been in crisis for the longest time because that is how this country is keeping us. But with that being said, we are here today to call you guys to action on so many fronts. If you are a lawyer and you have enough time, we need pro bono lawyers to ensure that due process is being done. If we need to find the right interpreters, we will provide them so you can help our brothers who are in detention and being forced to fill out pro se asylum applications right now, to try to get out of there. And if you can donate money, please support the Black Immigrants Bail Fund. In the last two years we’ve gotten requests to pay bonds that total $5 million. We are paying bonds, but we need help.”
Resources
Access a recording of the webinar here.
Read the letter to the Biden administration about Mauritanians in Adelanto here.
View a timeline of recent anti-Black treatment in Mauritania; information about the new language laws that further repress Black Mauritanians; and a backgrounder on deportations here.
Donate to the Black Immigrants Bail Fund here.
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