TPS for Mauritania

It’s been over two years since Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated that the Department of Homeland Security was exploring Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Mauritania.This measure would save lives, and has bipartisan support. Instead, the Biden administration has resumed deportation charter flights to Mauritania, despite long-standing bipartisan agreement to not deport Mauritanians from the U.S. due to the prevalence of horrific race and ethnicity-based human rights violations—including enslavement, forced statelessness, and ethnic cleansing. One deportation flight left in July this year and another is planned for August 2023.

We cannot be a country that detains people fleeing slavery, forced statelessness and other horrific racist human rights violations. We must be a country that welcomes people in need, and keeps families and individuals safe and together in their communities.

Why We Urgently Need TPS for Mauritania

It was the policy of both President Obama and George W. Bush to not deport people to Mauritania. The Trump Administration restarted these deportations and since the very beginning of the Biden administration we have been calling for them to reverse this policy, return to decades of bi-partisan precedent, and to designate TPS for the country. Members of Congress including Vice President Harris during her time as a U.S. Senator, have repeatedly called for protections for Black Mauritanians in the U.S. And earlier this year, in a bipartisan letter to the Biden Administration, Senator Sherrod Brown and Rep Mike Carey called for protections including TPS for Mauritanians.

In order to be designated for TPS a country has to meet the statutory requirements. Human rights experts and members of congress have repeatedly - over and over again - pointed out the dangerous and deadly conditions in Mauritania warranting a designation. Black Mauritanians suffer widespread race - and ethnicity-based human rights abuses, state-sponsored violence, land grabbing, repression of free speech, forced statelessness, and slavery, making deporting Black people to Mauritania dangerous—and even deadly. Credited human rights organizations have published report after report demonstrating that it is simply unsafe to deport people to the country. We have to listen to them.

We believe that standing against slavery and committing to protect Black Mauritanians from being deported to a place where their lives and freedom would be at risk, would be in line with the Administration's stated goal of racial equity within the U.S. immigration system for Black immigrants.

This administration has the opportunity to reverse course, to stand against slavery and racial persecution. We are calling on them today to do the right thing.

TPS is warranted given the following conditions

Black Mauritanians are subjected to:

  • Mauritania did not abolish slavery until 1981, and only criminalized the practice in 2007. However poor enforcement of the law and penalties has allowed slavery to continue with impunity. The U.S. Department of State’s 2021 country report has noted this. Black Mauritanians who are enslaved are not only forced to work without pay, but are subjected to routine sexual assault, including rape, family separation, and even murder.
    • Mauritania consistently ranks among the “top 10” countries in the world when it comes to the prevalence of slavery, as rated in the Global Survey Index (GSI), with one of the poorest governmental responses. In fact, the GSI’s rating of the Mauritanian government’s actions to combat slavery actually decreased in recent years, and 62% of the entire population is vulnerable to enslavement-like conditions, including much of the brutality described above.
  • Apartheid in Mauritania: Black Mauritanians face systematic racial discrimination at every level of society.
  • Many Black Mauritanians were stripped of their citizenship due to their race and ethnicity and are now stateless, making them perennially vulnerable to arrest, and restricting their ability to travel.
  • When deported to Mauritania, Black people face state-sanctioned violence, the inability to work, access education, and potentially slavery. Black Mauritanians who are not stateless are still subject to arrest, detention, enslavement, the denial of rights, and numerous other abuses.
  • While previous U.S. Administrations including under Presidents Bush and Obama, had largely paused deportations to Mauritania due to the horrific conditions in the country and the inability of Black Mauritanians to obtain identity documents, the Trump Administration restarted these. 
  • There is clear precedent for the Biden Administration to protect Black Mauritanians immediately, beginning with TPS. The State Department has advised U.S. citizens to refrain from visiting Mauritania in its latest travel warning, and in 2018, the Trump Administration terminated special trade benefits for Mauritania specifically because of its lack of progress in ending slavery. The Biden Administration has continued to keep Mauritania off of this AGOA eligibility list because of this very reason, and recently awarded a man from Mauritania a human rights defender award for his work in assisting survivors of slavery in the country.
  • Members of Congress have repeatedly pressed for the U.S. government to extend protections to Black Mauritanians. In fact, during her time in the Senate, then-Senator (now Vice President) Kamala Harris led her colleagues in a letter urging the Trump Administration to halt deportations of Mauritanian nationals.

In a bicameral and bipartisan letter to the Biden Administration, Senator Sherrod Brown and Rep Mike Carey called for protections including TPS for Mauritanians.

→ Open the Media Kit – TPS For Mauritania NOW!

Webinar: What's Happening to Mauritanians?

Mauritania-Press-Webinar-89

WATCH THE WEBINAR

CUSP recently moderated in a webinar about the current situation in Mauritania and the call to designate the country for TPS. ABISA, ACLU, Haitian Bridge Alliance, UndocuBlack Network, and the Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in the US. View the webinar to learn more about how you can take action to call on the Biden administration to halt deportations to Mauritania and designate the country for TPS.

VIEW THE WEBINAR
Mauritania-Press-Webinar-89

WATCH THE WEBINAR

CUSP recently moderated in a webinar about the current situation in Mauritania and the call to designate the country for TPS. ABISA, ACLU, Haitian Bridge Alliance, UndocuBlack Network, and the Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in the US. View the webinar to learn more about how you can take action to call on the Biden administration to halt deportations to Mauritania and designate the country for TPS.

VIEW THE WEBINAR

Webinar: Mauritanian Government Attacking Black Citizens June 2023

Social Media Kit

Sharing

Open the media kit for talking points, sample posts, graphics, and other content you can use to uplift this campaign.

Take action today

What you can do today to help bring attention to the dire situation in Mauritania:

Media Kit Cover Image - TPS For Mauritania NOW!

Get Involved

The TPS for Mauritanian Working Group meets virtually bi-weekly to strategize and plan for advocacy efforts to win TPS designation for Mauritania. If you are interested in joining the working group, please email info@wearecusp.org. We thank our partners Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in USA, UndocuBlack Network, Haitian Bridge Alliance, African Communities Together, ABISA, FWD.us & the U.S. Committee for Refugees & Immigrants for leading this work and advocating on behalf of Mauritanians since 2018.

Resources

View Our Recent Statement (PDF) Mauritania Flee Slavery, Ethnic Cleansing and Government Repression

By CUSP, Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in USA, UndocuBlack Network