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Senators Urge Trump Administration to Halt Deportation of Mauritanians
NNPA NEWSWIRE — Between 1989 and 1991, tensions between Arab-Berbers and black ethnic groups in Mauritania resulted in the government-led displacement, expulsion, and denationalization of over 70,000 black Mauritanians. According to Human Rights Watch, these injustices were also accompanied by a litany of other abuses, including extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests, torture, rape, property theft, and destruction of legal documents.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) and Representatives Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Joyce Beatty (D-OH) led a group of lawmakers in a bicameral letter calling on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cease the deportation of Black Mauritanian nationals, who face the threat of race-based discrimination, violence, or slavery if forced to return to Mauritania.
“Most Mauritanians in the United States arrived here seeking refuge from government-led racial and ethnic persecution and extreme violence,” wrote the lawmakers. “For the following two decades our government declined to deport Mauritanians because of the dangerous and potentially life-threatening conditions they would face if they were returned to their country of origin.”
There are approximately 3,000 Black Mauritanians in the United States, most of whom arrived in the 1990s after their government forcibly expelled them and stripped them of their citizenship on the basis of their race and ethnicity. So far in fiscal year 2018, the Trump administration has deported 79 Mauritanians, up from eight in FY 2017.
The lawmakers continued, “Mauritanians deported from the United States face unacceptable threats of racial and ethnic discrimination and slavery…We ask DHS and the State Department to jointly respond within 60 days to the following questions to clarify U.S. policies and practices regarding deportations of Mauritanians.”
In addition to Senator Harris and Representatives Thompson, Nadler, Lofgren, and Beatty, the letter was signed by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Representatives Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Alcee Hastings (D-FL), Debbie Dingell (D-MI), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), John Lewis (D-GA), Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Al Green (D-TX), Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Nydia Velázquez (D-NY), Judy Chu (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Albio Sires (D-NJ), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Keith Ellison (D-MN), and David Cicilline (D-RI).
PDF of the letter is available here and below.
October 12, 2018
[one_half]The Honorable Kirstjen Nielsen
Secretary
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528[/one_half][one_half_last]The Honorable Mike Pompeo
Secretary
U.S. Department of State
Washington, D.Cl 20518
[/one_half_last]Dear Secretary Nielsen and Secretary Pompeo,
We write to urge the immediate cessation of deportations of Mauritanian nationals to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. Under the Trump Administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has abruptly abandoned its 20-year long practice of simply monitoring most Mauritanians eligible for removal and begun actively deporting them. Most of the approximately 3,000 black Mauritanians in the United States have been here since the late 1990s, arriving after being violently expelled and stripped of citizenship by their government because of their race and ethnicity. It is unconscionable for the United States to deport these individuals back to Mauritania, where they will likely be denied basic human rights and possibly persecuted and enslaved.
Most Mauritanians in the United States arrived here seeking refuge from government-led racial and ethnic persecution and extreme violence. Between 1989 and 1991, tensions between Arab-Berbers and black ethnic groups in Mauritania resulted in the government-led displacement, expulsion, and denationalization of over 70,000 black Mauritanians. According to Human Rights Watch, these injustices were also accompanied by a litany of other abuses, including extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests, torture, rape, property theft, and destruction of legal documents. Upon their arrival in the United States, many Mauritanians unfortunately failed to make successful asylum claims and became removable; some were apparently exploited by predatory immigration consultants who submitted shoddy or fraudulent materials to the U.S. government on their behalf. Nonetheless, for the following two decades our government declined to deport Mauritanians because of the dangerous and potentially life-threatening conditions they would face if they were returned to their country of origin. Those who lacked lawful status were simply required to periodically check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Following President Trump’s January 25, 2017 Executive Order “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” which suspended the issuance of visas to nationals from countries ICE identified as being “recalcitrant” to cooperate with U.S. repatriation efforts, the Mauritanian government began to issue travel documents (laissez-passer) to facilitate U.S. deportations. This shift fueled a significant escalation in Mauritanian deportations. While DHS deported just four Mauritanians in fiscal year 2015, ten in fiscal year 2016, and eight in fiscal year 2017—in contrast, seventy-nine Mauritanians have been deported in fiscal year 2018 thus far.
Mauritanians deported from the United States face unacceptable threats of racial and ethnic discrimination and slavery. The slavery of individuals of black race and ethnicity remains rife in Mauritania, where the government only first abolished slavery in 1981, and only first criminalized it in 2007. The Central Intelligence Agency estimates that 20 percent of the Mauritanian population is enslaved, the highest rate worldwide. The International Labour Organization has “expressed deep concern over the persistence of slavery on a widespread scale” in Mauritania. The United Nations has noted that a “lack of access to basic services and alternative livelihoods for former black African and Haratine slaves serves to propagate the belief that former slaves are still inferior and will always be slaves.” The State Department has issued a level three (out of four) travel advisory for Mauritania, a designation reserved for countries whose governments do not fully meet the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and are not making significant efforts to do so.
Political conditions in Mauritania also unacceptably threaten deportees’ civil liberties and safety. Since current Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz overthrew a democratically-elected president in 2008, Mauritanian authorities have denied the existence of slavery and begun aggressively cracking down on anti-slavery activists. They have prohibited their peaceful gatherings, broken up their protests with excessive force, and surveilled them. Human rights advocates have documented over 168 arbitrary arrests of activists by government authorities since 2014 – alleging that 20 suffered torture, including being beaten, chained, threatened with death, and deprived of food, water, and sleep. A recently deported Mauritanian alleges that he was immediately jailed by government authorities for 13 days before he was released and fled the country. The State Department broadly urges reconsideration of travel to Mauritania due to crime and terrorism, stating that “violent crimes, such as mugging, armed robbery, rape, and assault are common.”
In light of the above facts, we ask DHS and the State Department to jointly respond within 60 days to the following questions to clarify U.S. policies and practices regarding deportations of Mauritanians, specifically:
- Has the State Department’s assessment of conditions in Mauritania or of risks and dangers for deportees in Mauritania informed DHS deportations of Mauritanians?
- Do DHS and the State Department have general policies and procedures regarding deportations of individuals to nations with governments that previously expelled such individuals on the basis of race or ethnicity?
- Is there precedent for the United States to deport large numbers of individuals back to a country that has persecuted them on the basis of race or ethnicity and/or rescinded their citizenship?
- How do DHS deportations of these individuals comply with international law and statutes pertaining to the treatment of stateless individuals and other individuals who are persecuted on the basis of their race and ethnicity?
- Has DHS or the State Department coordinated with Mauritanian authorities to ensure fair and safe treatment of deportees?
- What investigation, if any, has DHS or the State Department made into claims that black Mauritanians have been arbitrarily detained by Mauritanian authorities following their deportation?
- Please provide all documentation of communications between DHS, the State Department, and/or the Mauritanian government regarding the deportation of Mauritanians since January 2017.
We thank you for your attention to this matter.
Black Press
All Skinfolk Ain’t Kinfolk
An old saying coined by Floridian Zora Neale Hurston in her final major nonfiction work, Dust Tracks on a Road, set in Florida. “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” is an idiom that distinguishes shared identity from shared interests.
Byron Donalds wants to be Florida’s next governor. Not on our watch.
Our stance is rooted in an old saying coined by Floridian Zora Neale Hurston in her final major nonfiction work, Dust Tracks on a Road, set in Florida. “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” is an idiom that distinguishes shared identity from shared interests.
The congressman has done little to advance the cause of Black workers. In fact, on the AFL-CIO’s legislative scorecard, which tracks how legislators vote on the issues and policies that matter to working people, Rep. Donalds has voted against working people every time except once – giving him a lifetime score of 1%.
He has built his political identity around his support for Donald Trump and his embrace of Gov. Ron DeSantis, two political figures whose policies have undermined, undercut and trampled on our rights and freedoms.
As governor, DeSantis has been nearly surgical with his assault on the Black community, especially in education, where he undermined the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities through installing crony politicians; banned books by and about us from school libraries, rejected the country’s first AP course on Black culture, and instituted the STOP WOKE Act, which 11th Circuit judge rightfully demeaned as a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse.”
But he didn’t stop there. Next was Black employment.
As national labor leaders, we have witnessed the relationship between strong worker representation and stronger communities – especially for Black communities who over index when it comes to union membership. Like us, they have experienced the power of collective bargaining to help educators advocate for classroom resources, nurses raise concerns about patient care, and public employees seek fair compensation and safer working conditions. We have also seen the consequences when workers have fewer avenues to influence decisions affecting their livelihoods.
So it should come as no surprise that in 2023, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 256, imposing new restrictions on many public-sector labor unions by creating new challenges for unions seeking to maintain their bargaining certifications. This law is a direct threat to the sovereignty of American workers who have historically used unions to negotiate wages, benefits, workplace protections and the conditions under which essential public services are delivered.
The struggle for civil rights and the struggle for workers’ rights have long intersected. From A. Philip Randolph’s organizing of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, demands for economic dignity have stood alongside demands for equal treatment under the law.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that the promise of civil rights could not be fully realized without economic justice. His final campaign in Memphis reflected the conviction that workers’ rights, racial equality and human dignity were inseparable.
That history offers an important lesson for the present: Political representation and substantive policy representation are not necessarily the same thing.
That is history Byron Donalds has either forgotten or refuses to consider. Either way, it lays bare his disconnect from the collective vision of America most Black people share – one that acknowledges real differences while working to reduce the negative impacts of those differences. Donalds has adopted a different vision – one that thinks it more valiant to turn a blind eye to the disparate outcomes race creates in employment, education, and health care rather than admit there are real, structural issues that need to be addressed.
One person who does seem to understand and is working to do better is Donalds’ opponent, David Jolly, a former Republican congressman now running as a Democrat. He has positioned his candidacy as an alternative to the DeSantis approach, emphasizing affordability, public schools and a different direction for state government. And while we may not share skin color or a cultural history with Jolly, we do share his commitment to fight for equality and the dignity of the American worker.
The November 3 gubernatorial election presents Floridians with a choice between candidates offering different approaches to governing. Byron Donalds has sided with DeSantis who has made their disdain for Black people loud and law, and Jolly who sided with us and our understanding of community and collective power.
Every election is an opportunity to examine not only what candidates promise, but also what their records and policy commitments reveal.
For working people, that examination must include a fundamental principle: Economic prosperity and democratic participation are strongest when the people who do the work have a meaningful voice in shaping their future.
Florida’s next chapter will be written through the decisions of its people and the accountability they demand of those entrusted with public office.
That is the enduring promise of democracy—and a responsibility that belongs to all of us.
Fredrick D. Redmond, the highest-ranking African American labor official in history, is the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation representing 65 unions and nearly 15 million workers.
Fedrick C. Ingram is the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), representing 1.8 million educators, healthcare workers, and public employees.
Byron Donalds wants to be Florida’s next governor. Not on our watch.
Our stance is rooted in an old saying coined by Floridian Zora Neale Hurston in her final major nonfiction work, Dust Tracks on a Road, set in Florida. “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” is an idiom that distinguishes shared identity from shared interests.
The congressman has done little to advance the cause of Black workers. In fact, on the AFL-CIO’s legislative scorecard, which tracks how legislators vote on the issues and policies that matter to working people, Rep. Donalds has voted against working people every time except once – giving him a lifetime score of 1%.
He has built his political identity around his support for Donald Trump and his embrace of Gov. Ron DeSantis, two political figures whose policies have undermined, undercut and trampled on our rights and freedoms.
As governor, DeSantis has been nearly surgical with his assault on the Black community, especially in education, where he undermined the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities through installing crony politicians; banned books by and about us from school libraries, rejected the country’s first AP course on Black culture, and instituted the STOP WOKE Act, which 11th Circuit judge rightfully demeaned as a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse.”
But he didn’t stop there. Next was Black employment.
As national labor leaders, we have witnessed the relationship between strong worker representation and stronger communities – especially for Black communities who over index when it comes to union membership. Like us, they have experienced the power of collective bargaining to help educators advocate for classroom resources, nurses raise concerns about patient care, and public employees seek fair compensation and safer working conditions. We have also seen the consequences when workers have fewer avenues to influence decisions affecting their livelihoods.
So it should come as no surprise that in 2023, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 256, imposing new restrictions on many public-sector labor unions by creating new challenges for unions seeking to maintain their bargaining certifications. This law is a direct threat to the sovereignty of American workers who have historically used unions to negotiate wages, benefits, workplace protections and the conditions under which essential public services are delivered.
The struggle for civil rights and the struggle for workers’ rights have long intersected. From A. Philip Randolph’s organizing of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, demands for economic dignity have stood alongside demands for equal treatment under the law.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that the promise of civil rights could not be fully realized without economic justice. His final campaign in Memphis reflected the conviction that workers’ rights, racial equality and human dignity were inseparable.
That history offers an important lesson for the present: Political representation and substantive policy representation are not necessarily the same thing.
That is history Byron Donalds has either forgotten or refuses to consider. Either way, it lays bare his disconnect from the collective vision of America most Black people share – one that acknowledges real differences while working to reduce the negative impacts of those differences. Donalds has adopted a different vision – one that thinks it more valiant to turn a blind eye to the disparate outcomes race creates in employment, education, and health care rather than admit there are real, structural issues that need to be addressed.
One person who does seem to understand and is working to do better is Donalds’ opponent, David Jolly, a former Republican congressman now running as a Democrat. He has positioned his candidacy as an alternative to the DeSantis approach, emphasizing affordability, public schools and a different direction for state government. And while we may not share skin color or a cultural history with Jolly, we do share his commitment to fight for equality and the dignity of the American worker.
The November 3 gubernatorial election presents Floridians with a choice between candidates offering different approaches to governing. Byron Donalds has sided with DeSantis who has made their disdain for Black people loud and law, and Jolly who sided with us and our understanding of community and collective power.
Every election is an opportunity to examine not only what candidates promise, but also what their records and policy commitments reveal.
For working people, that examination must include a fundamental principle: Economic prosperity and democratic participation are strongest when the people who do the work have a meaningful voice in shaping their future.
Florida’s next chapter will be written through the decisions of its people and the accountability they demand of those entrusted with public office.
That is the enduring promise of democracy—and a responsibility that belongs to all of us.
Fredrick D. Redmond, the highest-ranking African American labor official in history, is the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation representing 65 unions and nearly 15 million workers.
Fedrick C. Ingram is the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), representing 1.8 million educators, healthcare workers, and public employees.
Byron Donalds wants to be Florida’s next governor. Not on our watch.
Our stance is rooted in an old saying coined by Floridian Zora Neale Hurston in her final major nonfiction work, Dust Tracks on a Road, set in Florida. “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk” is an idiom that distinguishes shared identity from shared interests.
The congressman has done little to advance the cause of Black workers. In fact, on the AFL-CIO’s legislative scorecard, which tracks how legislators vote on the issues and policies that matter to working people, Rep. Donalds has voted against working people every time except once – giving him a lifetime score of 1%.
He has built his political identity around his support for Donald Trump and his embrace of Gov. Ron DeSantis, two political figures whose policies have undermined, undercut and trampled on our rights and freedoms.
As governor, DeSantis has been nearly surgical with his assault on the Black community, especially in education, where he undermined the state’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities through installing crony politicians; banned books by and about us from school libraries, rejected the country’s first AP course on Black culture, and instituted the STOP WOKE Act, which 11th Circuit judge rightfully demeaned as a “breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse.”
But he didn’t stop there. Next was Black employment.
As national labor leaders, we have witnessed the relationship between strong worker representation and stronger communities – especially for Black communities who over index when it comes to union membership. Like us, they have experienced the power of collective bargaining to help educators advocate for classroom resources, nurses raise concerns about patient care, and public employees seek fair compensation and safer working conditions. We have also seen the consequences when workers have fewer avenues to influence decisions affecting their livelihoods.
So it should come as no surprise that in 2023, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 256, imposing new restrictions on many public-sector labor unions by creating new challenges for unions seeking to maintain their bargaining certifications. This law is a direct threat to the sovereignty of American workers who have historically used unions to negotiate wages, benefits, workplace protections and the conditions under which essential public services are delivered.
The struggle for civil rights and the struggle for workers’ rights have long intersected. From A. Philip Randolph’s organizing of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters to the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike, demands for economic dignity have stood alongside demands for equal treatment under the law.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that the promise of civil rights could not be fully realized without economic justice. His final campaign in Memphis reflected the conviction that workers’ rights, racial equality and human dignity were inseparable.
That history offers an important lesson for the present: Political representation and substantive policy representation are not necessarily the same thing.
That is history Byron Donalds has either forgotten or refuses to consider. Either way, it lays bare his disconnect from the collective vision of America most Black people share – one that acknowledges real differences while working to reduce the negative impacts of those differences. Donalds has adopted a different vision – one that thinks it more valiant to turn a blind eye to the disparate outcomes race creates in employment, education, and health care rather than admit there are real, structural issues that need to be addressed.
One person who does seem to understand and is working to do better is Donalds’ opponent, David Jolly, a former Republican congressman now running as a Democrat. He has positioned his candidacy as an alternative to the DeSantis approach, emphasizing affordability, public schools and a different direction for state government. And while we may not share skin color or a cultural history with Jolly, we do share his commitment to fight for equality and the dignity of the American worker.
The November 3 gubernatorial election presents Floridians with a choice between candidates offering different approaches to governing. Byron Donalds has sided with DeSantis who has made their disdain for Black people loud and law, and Jolly who sided with us and our understanding of community and collective power.
Every election is an opportunity to examine not only what candidates promise, but also what their records and policy commitments reveal.
For working people, that examination must include a fundamental principle: Economic prosperity and democratic participation are strongest when the people who do the work have a meaningful voice in shaping their future.
Florida’s next chapter will be written through the decisions of its people and the accountability they demand of those entrusted with public office.
That is the enduring promise of democracy—and a responsibility that belongs to all of us.
Fredrick D. Redmond, the highest-ranking African American labor official in history, is the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation representing 65 unions and nearly 15 million workers.
Fedrick C. Ingram is the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), representing 1.8 million educators, healthcare workers, and public employees.
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