African refugees fear US elections

On October 30, 2024By Karl

For the growing number of African refugees and economic immigrants in the United States, the upcoming presidential election could reshape their entire future.

Dr., a 38-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo living in the USA. “We deserve security,” says Yves Kaduli.

“I have a dream that I will defend the oppressed,” he adds in an interview with the BBC.

Dr Kaduli says he fled eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been plagued by conflict for almost three decades, in 2014 after being kidnapped and tortured.

He was working as a doctor at Cifunzi Hospital in the town of Kalonge and saw the effects of the conflict up close.

“Women were raped. I saw. I felt it in my body,” he tells the BBC.

Dr. Appalled by the civilian casualties, Kaduli said he and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. He said many of his colleagues, including Denis Mukwege, participated in protests against murders and rapes committed by armed groups and criticized then-President Joseph Kabila’s government for failing to provide security. people’s safety.

This led to him being targeted by unknown men, the doctor said.

“They came during our night shift and took me and another colleague away,” Dr. Kaduli added that they were then taken to a makeshift camp in a nearby forest, where they were beaten, tortured and threatened with death.

Dr. Kaduli said he managed to escape after being held for a day and decided he needed to get out.

Leaving his mother and young son behind, Dr. Kaduli said he began a five-year journey, first passing through neighboring Rwanda, then flying to Cuba, Ecuador and Nicaragua, and finally arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019.

“I stayed at the border for at least a month, we were living in small tents in inhumane conditions.”

He later managed to cross into the US and was detained for 15 months before being released, Dr Kaduli said.

He currently lives and works as a medical technician in Virginia and is awaiting a decision on his asylum case.

Dr Kaduli is one of thousands of African immigrants who complete the long journey against all odds to reach the US-Mexico border every year. This is an increasing number.

But while many Americans say immigration is their biggest concern in this election and both candidates promise to tighten borders, African refugees worry that the public could turn against them.

“We see our politicians criminalizing our status, demonizing our community and being president; they can decide our future,” Dr Kaduli told the BBC.

Nearly 13,000 African immigrants were recorded at the US-Mexico border in 2022, according to US Customs and Border protection data. In 2023, this figure quadrupled to 58,000.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that there has been a sharp increase in asylum applications from West African countries such as Senegal, Mauritania and Guinea to the same border since 2022.

New asylum applications from Senegalese citizens alone jumped from 773 in 2022 to 13,224 in 2024.

Although relatively stable, more than a third of the population in Senegal lives in poverty, according to the World Bank.

A growing number of young Senegalese are choosing to emigrate to the United States rather than face the more dangerous route to Europe across the Mediterranean.

They are opting for an increasingly popular route through visa-friendly Nicaragua, which has been shared via social media, including TikTok.

In September 2023, more than 140 Senegalese were deported to their country after crossing the Mexico-US border.

People come to the United States for mixed reasons, says Kathleen Bush-Joseph of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank funded by research grants and foundations.

“People may be fleeing persecution and economic conditions that make it difficult to feed their children. There are incentives to apply for asylum because they can get a work permit while they wait, which can be a real attraction for people looking to improve their lives,” he says.

Successfully seeking asylum in the United States is especially challenging for African immigrants.

Language barriers, lack of community upon arrival and lack of awareness of conflicts in Africa make the ordeal even more difficult for Africans, Ms. Bush-Joseph says.

“Judges and lawyers are often not familiar with situations where people have fled some African countries,” he tells the BBC.

There are risks for those who are deported, too.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report in 2022 alleging that dozens of Cameroonian refugees were imprisoned, tortured and raped after being sent back across the US border.

“People were sent back directly to harm and persecution in contexts of ongoing conflict and widespread human rights violations,” HRW researcher Lauren Seigbert told the BBC.

“Sending people back is a big risk,” he adds.

Nils Kinuani, federal policy director for African Communities Together, an organization that supports African asylum seekers and refugees in the United States, says campaign rhetoric about immigration has caused “great fear” among his community.

“People are afraid. There are concerns that refugee programs could be attacked,” says Mr Kinuani.

His organization and others are calling for more legal pathways to help African immigrants who fear deportation.

One option is humanitarian parole status, which provides legal protection for foreign nationals from countries facing crises such as conflicts or natural disasters.

May be issued by the US government to allow at-risk individuals to live and work in the US temporarily; Current programs include Ukraine, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Venezuela and Afghanistan.

There is no official humanitarian parole program between the United States and any African country.

Mr Kinuani adds that there is some resentment about the treatment of refugees from Ukraine compared to other nationalities.

He says that just a few weeks after the start of the war in Ukraine, citizens fleeing the conflict were able to apply for humanitarian parole.

“Ukrainian communities did not even need to seek humanitarian parole or defend themselves. “We need to push for a country like Sudan.”

The ongoing war in Sudan since April 2023 has displaced nine million people from their homes.

Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have put controlling immigration and resolving the U.S.-Mexico border crisis high on their list of campaign promises.

If elected, Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump would carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history” and reinstate border policies reminiscent of his first term in office, according to the official Republican National Committee’s 2024 Platform.

Meanwhile, Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris has vowed to revive the bipartisan border security bill that failed in Congress earlier this year.

According to the White House, the bill would “increase asylum staffing” and provide for a “faster and fairer” asylum process.

But it has drawn criticism from human rights groups and the UN.

President Joe Biden’s outgoing administration, which includes Harris, has already moved to crack down on immigrants at the border.

Under an executive order issued in June, authorities will be able to quickly deport immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally without processing their asylum claims once the daily threshold is exceeded and the border is “filled.”

This has led to a sharp decline in the number of people trying to enter the United States across the border, according to US officials.

For the first time in nearly two decades, more than half of Americans want immigration levels to the U.S. to be reduced rather than kept at current levels or increased, according to the latest poll from global analytics and consulting firm Gallup.

“There is a growing awareness that the asylum system in the United States is overwhelmed and people are making requests because they have no other way to come to the United States,” Ms. Bush-Joseph says.

“People’s frustration with the dysfunctionality of the US immigration system means there are concerns about the number of people seeking asylum.”

For now Dr. Kaduli is in a precarious situation and could wait four to 10 years for his asylum application to be decided.

He says his father passed away a few years ago, but his current situation did not allow him to leave the country to see his family.

“I feel uncomfortable when I see politicians speaking on TV while my case is ongoing, but I know I’m here for a reason,” he says.

His greatest hope is that one day his son and his mother will join him in the United States.

“I believe America will give me the same values, to work for myself, to help my family, to contribute to the economy of this country, so I’m between doubt and hope.”