DHS Returns Previously Deported Cameroons

The report that President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security is welcoming more illegal aliens is, on one hand, no surprise. But the brazen nature of flying Cameroonians deported between 2019 and 2021 back to the U.S. after adjudicators denied their asylum claims and closed their cases establishes a new low in the administration’s disregard for immigration law and shows its contempt for the nation’s sovereignty. The Washington Free Beacon reported that, after interviewing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and reviewing internal agency memorandums, the administration acted in response to Human Rights Watch findings that between 80 to 90 deported Cameroonians were mistreated by their government. The Cameroonians claim that, while in ICE custody and back home in Cameroon, they were abused and that U.S. immigration officials did not adequately address their asylum claims.

The Free Beacon’s evaluation of the ICE memo found that an ICE official was working closely with Texas A & M University’s Immigrant Rights Clinic. The clinic’s goal is to spread the returning deportees around the country which would help keep the public in the dark as to their whereabouts and the program’s reach. Returning deportees has precedent in Biden’s administration. Biden ordered returned two illegal immigrants that the Trump administration deported, one Haitian in 2018 and one Argentinian in 2019. The pair are known immigration rights advocates. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ 2021 guidelines prohibit arresting illegal immigrants protesting immigration policy.

The real surprise is that the Cameroonians’ asylum claims were denied and that they were ever deported. Five years ago, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had an increasingly tolerant view of fraudulent claims. Some asylum officers were in open revolt against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Nevertheless, USCIS rejected the Cameroonians’ claims and referred them to the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) where they were denied again. EOIR ordered them deported and promptly sent back to Cameroon.

The Free Beacon further reported that the administration’s official rationale for the fly-back program is to avoid a "potential lawsuit." There is pending litigation in New York over documents related to alleged abuse of Cameroonian migrants, but no court has ordered their return. Former ICE chief of staff Tom Blank said that the Cameroonians were afforded all their due process rights, and a court ordered them deported. Blank added: "For DHS to arbitrarily reverse court orders to satisfy complaints from an activist group makes a joke out of the entire legal immigration process. It looks like outside activist groups now run the DHS immigration process instead of the courts."

Under Mayorkas’ direction, any immigration law violation is not only possible but probable. His guidelines prohibiting where and under what circumstances agents can carry out their sworn enforcement duties represents a de facto amnesty. Mayorkas’ so-called protected areas include most every location where people congregate---from schools that offer day care to university campuses, medical facilities, playgrounds, churches and many more. Mayorkas made Biden and his immigration agenda abundantly clear at an Al Sharpton National Action Network meeting. “It is all about achieving equity [for illegal aliens], which is really the core founding principle of our country,” the DHS secretary declared.

The Cameroonian incident proves that opening the borders and ending ICE’s removals isn’t enough for the Biden administration, so its next step is to bring back, at taxpayer expense, previously deported illegal aliens. The evidence supports the theory that Biden’s goal is to destroy sovereign American with subversive maneuvers like the Cameroon disgrace. Senator Bill Hagerty (D-TN), speaking about the border fiasco said, “Of the roughly 17 million illegal aliens in the U.S. today: 99 percent are roaming free, completely unsupervised by the Biden [administration]. Only 1 percent are even being actively supervised. Only 0.25 percent are being detained.”

A disturbing footnote: the House voted to impeach Mayorkas for his border crimes and his blatant disregard for established immigration law. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tabled the constitutional requirement that the Senate hold a trial for impeached cabinet members. As Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said, “In over two hundred years of our nation’s history, the Senate has never once tabled articles of impeachment. That has never happened. Every single time, the Senate has voted on either guilt or innocence, or the House has withdrawn the impeachment.”

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at [email protected]