Dozens of asylum seekers were subjected to human rights abuses including torture, rape and imprisonment after being deported from the US by the administration of former US President Donald Trump, according to a new report.

The report, by New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW), says that the asylum seeking Cameroonians, who fled their country between 2019 and 2020, were unfairly denied asylum and deported.

HRW has investigated the fate of almost a hundred Cameroonians expelled from the US between 2019 and 2021 amid protests.

The group is now calling on the Biden administration to allow those wrongly deported to return to the US and reapply for asylum.

The asylum seekers fled Cameroon because of a conflict in the English-speaking region of the country, where the government is fighting armed separatist groups.

Titled ‘How Can You Throw Us Back?”: Asylum Seekers Abused in the US and Deported to Harm in Cameroon’, the report claims Cameroonian authorities detained or imprisoned at least 39 of the deportees, many without due process or in inhumane conditions, for periods ranging from days to months.

“Human Rights Watch documented 14 cases of physical abuse or assault of 13 deported people, 13 by Cameroonian authorities – including nine in detention – and one by armed separatists,” the report said.

“State agents raped three women in custody, subjected a man to forced labour, and severely beat returnees, often during interrogations. Several of these cases amount to torture,” it said.

“State agents harmed or targeted the family members of at least seven deported people.

“While looking for returnees, government forces allegedly shot and killed a woman’s sister, abducted a man’s 11-year-old son, and severely beat a man’s mother. Others were arbitrarily detained, extorted, and harassed.

“Nearly everyone on the October and November flights had sought and was denied asylum… Human Rights Watch research indicates that many had credible asylum claims, but due process concerns, fact-finding inaccuracies, and other issues contributed to unfair asylum decisions,” the report said.

The report also said that many asylum seekers also reported experiencing excessive force, medical neglect, and other mistreatment in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in the US.

During the final year of the Trump administration, the number of Cameroonian asylum applications granted by US courts dropped from 79 per cent to 59 per cent.

The Washington-based think tank The Pew Research Center has reported that the Trump administration slashed refugee resettlement in the US to historically low levels.

HRW says the proportion of asylum applications granted by the Biden administration has increased, although numbers are still lower than the pre-Trump period.

The Biden administration cancelled a planned deportation flight to Cameroon soon after taking office but is reported to have deported at least three Cameroonians last October.

HRW Report author Lauren Seibert said the US government had “utterly failed Cameroonians with credible asylum claims by sending them back to harm in the country they fled, as well as mistreating already traumatized people before and during deportation”.

The report said that by returning Cameroonians to face persecution, torture, and other harm, the US had violated a fundamental principle of international refugee and human rights law.

HRW reported that the Cameroon Advocacy Network (CAN), a coalition of immigrant rights groups and immigrants in the US, has urged the Biden administration to allow Cameroonians deported between 2020 and 2021 to return to the US for “urgent humanitarian reasons”.

“The suffering that Cameroonians deported by the U.S. have been through is heartbreaking and makes it crystal clear that Cameroon is not safe for return,” CAN coordinator Daniel Tse said.

“If the Biden administration hopes to make the U.S. immigration system more humane, it should rectify the wrongs done to Cameroonian asylum seekers and halt deportations to Cameroon,” Mr Tse said.

Read the full report here: https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/02/10/how-can-you-throw-us-back/asylum-seekers-abused-us-and-deported-harm-cameroon