The Biden administration is flying previously deported Cameroonians whose asylum claims were determined to be invalid back into the United States, according to interviews with Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff and internal agency memos reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The program, which has not been announced to the public, appears to be a response to a February 2022 Human Rights Watch report about dozens of Cameroonians deported between 2019 and 2021 and then allegedly mistreated by their government. An estimated 80 to 90 Cameroonians were deported during that period of time.
But now some are arriving back in the United States under a program with little precedent, both current and former ICE officials say. All of the individuals deported under the previous administration were found not to have valid asylum claims in the United States.
The decision to fly back the previously deported Cameroonians is the latest instance of the Biden administration reversing its predecessor’s immigration initiatives. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden rolled back a number of former president Donald Trump’s border policies and paused southern border wall construction. Biden later ended a policy that forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico before their court hearing, which critics blame for the sharp uptick in illegal border crossings.
