SILVER SPRING, Maryland — The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., or CLINIC, joins dozens of organizations today in the call for Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Cameroon on the national Black Immigrant Advocacy Day of Action. As founder and steering committee member of the Temporary Protected Status Deferred Enforced Departure Administrative Advocacy Coalition, or TPS-DED AAC, CLINIC has been continuously calling for TPS for Cameroon as conflict and humanitarian crises make safe return to the country impossible.

The TPS-DED AAC and CLINIC’s advocacy on Cameroon TPS began under the previous administration, with repeated asks starting in the earliest days of the Biden administration, even before inauguration. CLINIC laid out the country conditions and case for Cameroon TPS in this backgrounder, delivered to the Biden administration more than a year ago. The Biden administration has failed to newly designate any African country for TPS.

Today, with Black History Month well under way and the crisis in Cameroon still raging, Lisa Parisio, CLINIC’s Director of Advocacy, issued the following statement:

“During the transition and early days of the Biden administration, the TPS-DED AAC delivered policy recommendations supported by hundreds of organizations calling for an immediate designation of TPS for Cameroon. A year later, the situation remains dire, and the administration has yet to respond. TPS is a readily available tool the administration has at its disposal right now to provide life-saving protection to Cameroonians in the U.S. Conditions in Cameroon are life-threatening. Cameroonians in the U.S. are trapped in detention centers and at risk of deportation, and some have been deported back to Cameroon, subjected to the violence they first fled. TPS is clearly warranted under the law and by basic morality. The delay on TPS for Cameroon is deadly and it must end now.”