28, April 2021
Deportations of Cameroonian Asylum Seekers: Rights groups demand records on Trump’s ‘Death Flight’ 0
Accusing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement of “crimes against humanity,” civil rights attorneys with three organizations filed Freedom of Information Act requests on Monday, demanding information on the federal government’s use of excessive force and coercion to deport asylum seekers.
The requests were submitted by lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights, Project South, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on behalf of several refugees from Cameroon. The Alliance in Defense of Black Immigrants worked with the groups to file the requests.
“The government’s mass deportations of Cameroonian and other Black immigrants [are] inhumane and targeted,” said Samah Sisay, an attorney and Bertha Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
“Black asylum seekers, many of whom faced political persecution in their home countries, referred to their deportation as a ‘death flight.’ These crimes against humanity are unforgivable, and we must never allow them to happen again.”
—Azadeh Shahshahani, Project South
According to the asylum seekers’ complaints, ICE agents used pepper spray and, in some cases, methods of torture, to force them to sign deportation paperwork between August 2020 and January 2021, in the last months of the Trump administration.
“I said I didn’t want to sign a deportation order,” one Cameroonian asylum seeker wrote in a civil rights complaint (pdf) filed with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) and DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG). “I said I am afraid to go back to my country. [An ICE agent] promised me he would torture me… He pressed my neck into the floor. I said, ‘Please, I can’t breathe.’ I lost my blood circulation.”
Last year, the U.S. government deported an unknown number of Cameroonians and other African refugees, sending them back to their home countries to potentially face violence and persecution. Many of the asylum seekers had pending trials in immigration court.
Hundreds of civilians have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced in the past several years amid violence perpetrated by separatists and the armed group Boko Haram.
According to Human Rights Watch, people who are deported to Cameroon “face a serious risk of abuse by government security forces because they may be assumed to have links to separatists, or from the separatists themselves.”
“The government must atone for the appalling human rights abuses it has committed within its abominable immigrant prison and deportation apparatus. Black asylum seekers, many of whom faced political persecution in their home countries, referred to their deportation as a ‘death flight,'” said Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director of Project South. “These crimes against humanity are unforgivable, and we must never allow them to happen again.”
In February, more than 40 members of Congress wrote to President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, calling on them to grant temporary protected status to Cameroonians and place an 18-month pause on their deportations.
“Country conditions in Cameroon are both extraordinary and temporary, making return untenable and warranting immediate protections for Cameroonians living in the United States,” the letter said.
Although former President Donald Trump’s term is over, the attorneys said Monday, President Joe Biden must take responsibility for ensuring that asylum seekers from Cameroon and other countries are not put in harm’s way.
The abuse of Black immigrants by the U.S. “cannot simply be swept under the rug with the change in government,” said Luz Lopez, a senior supervising attorney with the SPLC.
“If we are to take the new administration at their word that they are creating a more fair and humane immigration system, they must exercise transparency, cooperate with a full investigation, and work to ensure these abuses cannot occur in the future,” she added.
Source: Commondreams.org



















28, April 2021
Cameroon student extradited from Romania in Pittsburgh-based puppy scam case 0
A student from Cameroon charged in Pittsburgh with running a puppy scam during the COVID-19 pandemic appeared briefly in a Pittsburgh federal courtroom on Tuesday after being extradited last week from Romania, where he has been in custody for five months.
Desmond Fodje Bobga appeared by video from the Allegheny County Jail before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maureen Kelly, who set a preliminary hearing for Monday.
Mr. Bobga, a Cameroon citizen attending college in Romania, was arrested in December by Romanian authorities following an investigation by the Pittsburgh FBI.
Federal prosecutors accused him of taking money for dogs and other animals and not delivering. He is charged with 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, forging the seal of the U.S. Supreme Court and identity theft.
Mr. Bobga and his cohorts created fake websites to advertise puppies using cute pictures, then communicated with victims in the U.S., obtained payment and never delivered any animals, the FBI said. In fact, there never were any animals and the whole thing was a scam, according to the FBI.
Agents said the group exploited the pandemic by telling victims who had already paid for an animal that they had to pay various extra fees for shipping, vaccination and COVID-19 quarantine.
Mr. Bobga directed some payments directly to himself and sent other payments to other African students in Romania, the FBI said.
One victim in New Brighton lost nearly $10,000. Other buyers in the Western District of Pennsylvania lived in Cheswick, Pittsburgh and Indiana County, but the schemers ripped off hundreds of victims across the U.S., the FBI said.
Source: Post gazette.com