IV 
119TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 378 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the plight of 
Cameroonian immigrants and the continued turmoil and instability in 
the nation of Cameroon merits a designation of humanitarian parole 
and calling on the Department of Homeland Security to create a humani-
tarian parole program for Cameroonians fleeing this violence. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 5, 2025 
Mr. ESPAILLAT (for himself, Mr. IVEY, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. CLEAVER, Ms. 
ADAMS, Ms. PINGREE, and Ms. CASTOR of Florida) submitted the fol-
lowing resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, 
and in addition to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for a period to be 
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration 
of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee con-
cerned 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the plight of Cameroonian immigrants and the continued 
turmoil and instability in the nation of Cameroon merits 
a designation of humanitarian parole and calling on the 
Department of Homeland Security to create a humani-
tarian parole program for Cameroonians fleeing this vio-
lence. 
Whereas Cameroon is experiencing five simultaneous ethno- 
armed conflicts that have coalesced into a severe humani-
tarian crisis, as identified by the United Nations and 
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•HRES 378 IH 
other international organizations, which includes the 
Anglophone Crisis, the Boko Haram insurgency, socio-
economic clashes between herders, fishers, and farmers, 
state-sanctioned violence, and the conflict spillover from 
the Central African Republic; 
Whereas each conflict has led to significant loss of life, dis-
placement, and human rights violations; 
Whereas the Anglophone Crisis in the Northwest and South-
west Regions began in 2016 with protests by teachers 
and lawyers against the appointment of local officials 
that challenged the Anglophone region’s sense of auton-
omy and escalated into an armed separatist movement 
seeking independence for an unrecognized state called 
‘‘Ambazonia’’, and over 4,000 civilians have been killed, 
more than 600,000 people have been internally displaced, 
and over 70,000 have fled to Nigeria; 
Whereas educational institutions remain targets of violence, 
affecting over 500,000 children, and the local economy 
has collapsed due to insecurity; 
Whereas the Boko Haram insurgency in the Far North Re-
gion has persisted since 2014, with Boko Haram and 
ISIS-West Africa launching deadly attacks on villages 
and civilians; 
Whereas these foreign terrorist organizations are responsible 
for more than 3,000 deaths in the Lake Chad Basin, 
their terror has displaced over 250,000 individuals, and 
the insurgents engage in mass abductions, suicide bomb-
ings, and forced marriages, terrorizing communities and 
exacerbating insecurity in the region; 
Whereas the farmer-herder and fisher-herder clashes are driv-
en by climate change and land and water scarcity, are ex-
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•HRES 378 IH 
acerbated by religious strife between Muslim, Christian, 
and Traditional Spiritualist communities, and entire vil-
lages and religious sites have been destroyed, worsening 
intercommunal relations; 
Whereas the political crisis affects the entire country, with 
President Paul Biya maintaining power since 1982, and 
suppressing any political opposition; 
Whereas concerns over President Biya’s age, declining health, 
and ability to govern have intensified political instability, 
and security forces have carried out arbitrary arrests, 
cracked down on opposition figures, violated human 
rights, and shut down the internet to silence dissent; 
Whereas the conflict spillover from the Central African Re-
public has destabilized the East and Adamawa Regions 
due to incursions by armed Seleka and Anti-Balaka mili-
tias; 
Whereas the influx of refugees and the movement of armed 
groups across the border have increased violence and 
criminal activity in these regions, and economic, ethnic, 
and religious tensions between Cameroonian communities 
and Central African refugees have escalated, leading to 
further instability; 
Whereas, due to ongoing armed conflict, continued human 
rights abuses, and other extraordinary and temporary 
conditions in Cameroon that prevent Cameroonian na-
tionals from safely returning to their country, the De-
partment of Homeland Security designated Cameroon for 
temporary protected status (TPS) in April 2022 and then 
redesignated and extended TPS for Cameroon in October 
2023, providing short-term relief for Cameroonian immi-
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•HRES 378 IH 
grants who have been continuously residing in the United 
States since October 5, 2023; 
Whereas recent credible reporting suggests that the Trump 
administration intends to allow the TPS protections ap-
plied to Cameroonian nationals to expire in June of this 
year, which will further exasperate and expand the sever-
ity and scope of the harm incurred by the Cameroonian 
people, and will likely intensify the ongoing security and 
humanitarian crisis in the West African country; 
Whereas Cameroonian immigrants who have fled to Nigeria 
have previously faced extradition back to Cameroon 
where they risk an unfair trial and the possibility of tor-
ture; 
Whereas the journey from Africa to seek refuge in the West-
ern Hemisphere is particularly perilous and occasionally 
deadly for Cameroonian migrants, as demonstrated in 
March 2023 when a boat carrying nearly 3 dozen West 
African 
immigrants, 
a 
majority 
of 
whom 
were 
Cameroonian migrants en route to the United States Vir-
gin Islands, capsized, killing 3 Cameroonians and leading 
to a search for 13 additional bodies that were never 
found; 
Whereas, in December 2023, the European Union (EU) 
signed a pact to facilitate the deportation of asylum seek-
ers and limit migration to the bloc, leaving Cameroonian 
migrants fleeing violence or ethnoreligious persecution 
particularly at risk; 
Whereas amid stricter EU immigration policies, Cameroonian 
asylum seekers are increasingly seeking protection in 
Latin America and the United States, where they often 
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face intense discrimination, detainment, poor conditions 
of confinement, and deportation; 
Whereas, in the United States, despite only making up 
around 7 percent of the noncitizen population, Black im-
migrants represent over 20 percent of those in deporta-
tion proceedings on criminal grounds, constituting reveal-
ing evidence of the disparate treatment of Black immi-
grants; 
Whereas, in August 2020, Cameroonian detainees at Louisi-
ana’s Pine Prairie Immigration and Customs Enforce-
ment (ICE) detention center launched their third hunger 
strike that year to bring attention to their experiences of 
racism, unwarranted threats, and excessive abuse by ICE 
officials; 
Whereas, although only 6 percent of migrants detained by 
ICE are Black, 28 percent of abuse complaints over a re-
cent 6-year period (2016–2021) were reported by Black 
detained persons, and nearly half of the calls (43 per-
cent) by Black nonbinary-detained persons included re-
ports of abuse; 
Whereas immigrants from majority Black countries, such as 
Cameroon, that are in ICE detention facilities are sent 
to solitary confinement at a disproportionately high rate, 
pay higher bonds, and face more rejections for asylum 
than immigrants from nonmajority Black countries; 
Whereas a recent report from Human Rights Watch reveals 
that Cameroonian authorities, including police, para-
military officers (gendarmes), military personnel, and 
other Cameroonian state actors have subjected returned 
deportees, and family members of those deportees, to se-
rious human rights violations to punish them for fleeing, 
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including rape, torture, physical abuse, extortion, arbi-
trary arrest and detention, and inhuman and degrading 
treatment in detention; 
Whereas this aforementioned report by Human Rights Watch 
further indicates that, upon the arrival of deported mi-
grants back in Cameroon, Cameroonian authorities have 
confiscated the identity documents of these Cameroonian 
citizens in an attempt to contain, monitor, and possibly 
arrest these individuals at a later date on fabricated 
charges; 
Whereas section 212(d)(5)(A) of the Immigration and Na-
tionality Act grants the Secretary of the Department of 
Homeland Security the authority to establish parole pro-
grams for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant 
public benefits (‘‘Special Humanitarian Parole’’); and 
Whereas, since the creation of the Humanitarian Parole proc-
ess in the 1950s, the United States Government has suc-
cessfully established over 120 different programmatic or 
categorical parole programs to address the circumstances 
of deserving, at-risk immigrant populations from nations 
in Europe, Asia, and Central and South America, but has 
never created such a program for any of the 54 African 
nations in the program’s 70-year history, raising con-
cerns of anti-Blackness and anti-Africanness in the 
United States historical immigration policy that deserve 
to be addressed and corrected: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) recognizes the dire and ongoing humani-
tarian crisis for Cameroonian migrants that are flee-
ing violence and widespread human rights violations 
in their home nation, in addition to the discrimina-
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tory treatment often faced by Black and African im-
migrants; 
(2) calls on the Secretary of Homeland Security 
to use the authority under section 212(d)(5)(A) of 
the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 
1182(d)(5)(A)) to establish a special humanitarian 
parole program for Cameroonian nationals who are 
seeking refuge in the United States to grant these 
immigrants much-deserved humanitarian relief; and 
(3) urges the United States Government to allo-
cate appropriate resources to assist in the successful 
resettlement of Cameroonian immigrants, including 
comprehensive support for Cameroonians benefitting 
from Special Humanitarian Parole status. 
Æ 
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