IV 
118TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1048 
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 
MARCH 1, 2024 
Mr. ESPAILLAT (for himself, Mr. IVEY, Mr. TRONE, Mr. BOWMAN, Ms. 
OCASIO-CORTEZ, Mr. RUPPERSBERGER, Mr. CLEAVER, and Mr. MCGOV-
ERN) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Com-
mittee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Foreign Af-
fairs, 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 concerned 
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 currently facing multiple ongoing 
armed conflicts including the Boko Haram terror crisis, 
the Seleka/Anti-Balaka rebel crisis, the Anglophone seces-
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•HRES 1048 IH 
sionist crisis, and other ethno-religious clashes, in addi-
tion to widespread corruption and political instability; 
Whereas Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa, which have 
been designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the 
United States Government since 2013 and 2018, respec-
tively, have continued to launch deadly attacks on villages 
and civilians in Cameroon’s northern region; 
Whereas the civil war in the Central African Republic has 
also spilled over to Cameroon, with cross-border militias 
initiating conflicts in eastern Cameroon; 
Whereas, from 2016 through November 2023, over 6,000 
people were killed as a direct result of violence in north-
west and southwest Cameroon, and according to the 
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humani-
tarian Affairs (OCHA), 1,700,000 people in Cameroon 
are in need of humanitarian assistance, 638,421 people 
have been internally displaced, and more than 87,402 
have fled to neighboring Nigeria; 
Whereas the Cameroonian military faces credible accusations 
of arresting people it identifies as dissidents, burning 
down civilian homes, and killing citizens with impunity, 
further 
exacerbating 
the 
humanitarian 
crisis 
for 
Cameroonian civilians; 
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 Cameroonian nationals for 
TPS in October 2023, providing short-term relief for 
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•HRES 1048 IH 
Cameroonian immigrants who have been continuously re-
siding in the United States since October 5, 2023; 
Whereas the aforementioned TPS designations do not apply 
to Cameroonians who arrived in the United States after 
October 5, 2023, presenting a pressing need for the 
United States to apply humanitarian protections for 
Cameroonians who continue to flee the ongoing armed 
conflicts in their country and who have continued to ar-
rive in the United States since October 5, 2023; 
Whereas, as of February 2024, multiple nations other than 
Cameroon have received concurrent TPS designations 
and humanitarian parole designations from the Depart-
ment of Homeland Security as a means of providing com-
prehensive protection in the United States for deserving 
and embattled immigrant populations; 
Whereas Cameroonian immigrants who have fled to Nigeria 
have previously faced extradition back to Cameroon 
where they risk an unfair trial before a military court 
and the possibility of torture; 
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 
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•HRES 1048 IH 
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 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; 
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•HRES 1048 IH 
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, 
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 1950’s, 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 fifty-four Af-
rican nations in the program’s 70-year history, raising 
concerns of anti-Blackness and anti-Africanness in the 
United States historical immigration policy that deserve 
to be addressed and corrected: Now, therefore, be it 
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