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October 14, 2020

100+ Cameroonian Asylum Seekers Deported Despite Fear of Being Killed
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In immigration news, over 100 asylum seekers from Cameroon were deported
en masse Tuesday afternoon, despite congressional intervention and
efforts from activists, who held an action at the Fort Worth Alliance
Airport in Texas to try to stop the deportation flights. Among those
deported were several leaders of a hunger strike at Pine Prairie
Detention Center in Louisiana and two Cameroonian women who fear they
were unknowingly subjected to forced sterilizations at Irwin Detention
Center in Georgia. Immigration rights groups say ICE agents coerced the
asylum seekers into signing their deportation orders after months of
torture and abuse. The asylum seekers say they were held in solitary
confinement after joining hunger strikes. Many of them fear they'll be
killed upon their arrival to Cameroon. This is one of the Cameroonian
asylum seekers speaking from an ICE prison.

Cameroonian asylum seeker: "We are under ICE custody, which they keep on
giving us torture. For several years, they're keeping us, and they want
to send us back to our country, which it is violent. … Too many of us,
if we return back to our country, we are going to be homeless. … My mom
was shot in front of me. Just imagine what is happening to our country."



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