Tag: immigration issues

Immigration

U.S. Expects to Use All Employment-Based Green Cards This Year

By Michelle Hackman | Wall Street Journal

U.S. immigration authorities project that they will use up all the extra available employment-based green cards for the fiscal year ending this month, averting the risk that the government would for the second year running let thousands go to waste.

Typically, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes green cards and other immigration applications, hands out about 140,000 employment-based green cards to foreign employees and their families, representing a fraction of demand that results in a decadelong wait for some applicants.

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Immigration

Why Nigeria is the only African country excluded from 2023 DV-Visa Lottery

By Biodun Busari | Vanguard

The United States has excluded Nigeria from its 2023 Diversity Immigrant Visa programme which is also known as the green card lottery.

Nigeria’s exclusion from the programme makes it eight years in a row that the US ignored the most populous African country in the world among immigrants entering via DVL.

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Immigration

Visa lottery 2023 results | 4 million foreigners can now check if they won

By Ebimo Amungo

Four millions foreign nationals around the world who last year entered the 2023 visa lottery to legally immigrate to the United States with permanent resident status can now check if they were among the 50, 000 lucky winners of the lottery from noon on Saturday May 7th, 2022.

According to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs the DV Entrant Status Check function at the Bureau’s website will be live for status searches from that day and entrants in the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program can find out if they were randomly selected for a U.S. green card.

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Asylum

A Congolese banker embraces care-giving in New Hampshire

By Gloria B. Anderson and Julie Zimmer | manchesterinklink.com

Mentoring developmentally disabled youth in New Hampshire may not seem like a logical career step for a former bank manager from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

But for Bienfait, a Congolese immigrant – he declines to use his last name for reasons of personal safety — the job is highly satisfying. 

Now residing in Manchester, Bienfait, an applicant for asylum, considers himself blessed to have a job with Sevita, formerly known as the Mentor Network, a nationwide company that provides services to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.  

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Uncategorized

Patrick Lyoya escaped violence and persecution in Congo only to die in Michigan

By Niraj Warikoo | Detroit Free Press

When the Lyoya family arrived in the U.S. in 2014 after facing years of war and persecution in Africa, the refugees thought they had finally made it.

They had escaped earlier from conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and were living in Malawi when they won asylum to live in the U.S., part of a growing number of refugees from Congo in Michigan.

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Immigration

U.S. Offers Protection to People Who Fled War in Cameroon

By Miriam Jordan | The New York Post

The Biden administration announced on Friday that it would offer temporary protected status to nationals of Cameroon, shielding them from deportation and enabling them to obtain work permits, amid escalating armed conflict that has spawned a humanitarian crisis in the African country.

Some 40,000 nationals of Cameroon, many of whom sought safe haven in the United States in recent years, are expected to be eligible. The largest communities of people from Cameroon are in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and California.

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Immigration

African refugees see racial bias as US welcomes Ukrainians

By PHILIP MARCELO | AP

Wilfred Tebah doesn’t begrudge the U.S. for swiftly granting humanitarian protections to Ukrainians escaping Russia’s devastating invasion of their homeland. But the 27-year-old, who fled Cameroon during its ongoing conflict, can’t help but wonder what would happen if the millions fleeing that Eastern Europe nation were a different hue.

As the U.S. prepares to welcome tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing war, the country continues to deport scores of African and Caribbean refugees back to unstable and violent homelands where they’ve faced rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and other abuses.

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Communities

Africa in the spotlight | Afrohouse is connecting platform for Africans in Springfield, Illinois

By Tiffani Jackson | State Journal-Register

When Olric Manthelot moved to Springfield in 2015, he was a victim of cultural stereotypes. As an African who immigrated from Congo-Brazzaville he said the language barrier and stigmas motivated ignorant assumptions about his people.

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Uncategorized

US increases number of South Sudanese who can seek asylum in America

By Sudans Post

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is expanding the number of Sudanese and South Sudanese immigrants in the US who can apply for temporary protected status, which shields people from deportation and allows them to obtain work permits, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.

The decision to newly designate Sudan for temporary protected status — and redesignate South Sudan — comes several years after former president Donald Trump sought to take away the protections, but a federal court judge blocked him in 2018.

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Immigration

Young undocumented immigrants in Maryland can’t grow up to be whatever they want. This graduate student is trying to change that.

By Theresa Vargas | The Washington Post

There are glass ceilings that force some people to work harder and longer to reach top jobs within their fields. And then there are steel ceilings, ones that are not penetrable, no matter what skills, education or work ethic a person brings. No amount of striving gets a person past those because they are fortified with laws and policies.
Those are the kind Ewaoluwa Ogundana is telling me about on a recent morning.

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Immigration

Led By Africans, Immigrants Now Make Up 1 of Every 10 Blacks In America

By Nicole Duncan-Smith | Atlanta Black Star

The Black immigrant demographic is growing at lightning speed. Fueled chiefly by an influx of people coming to the continent from Africa, over the past 40 years the number of Black immigrants in the United States has sextupled.

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Immigration

Black immigrants are more likely to be denied US citizenship than White immigrants, study finds

By Giselle Rhoden and Nicole Chavez, CNN

(CNN)Black male immigrants are less likely to be approved for United States citizenship than White immigrants, a new study released this week shows.

Researchers at the University of Southern California analyzed more than 2 million citizenship applications filed by US permanent residents between October 2014 and March 2018, and found racial disparities among those whose applications were approved.

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Immigration

How Two Columbus Nonprofits Help New Americans

Immigrants and refugees from Africa often face a difficult transition, navigating disparate cultures and questions of identity.

By Chris Gaitten | Columbus Monthly

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Immigration

LGBTQ Africans struggle to navigate US asylum process

By Prince Chingarande | Washington Blade

It is no secret that many LGBTQ individuals around the world live in fear of the negative implications that result from identifying outside the limits of cisgenderism and heteronormativity. For Africans living in Africa, this panic is even more pronounced as many are abused, jailed, or even murdered for simply existing as queer.

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Opinion

Black immigration’s success story

By George Fishman | Newsday

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s inspiring rebuttal to President Biden’s address to Congress last month was controversial because as an African American he proclaimed that “America is not a racist country,” but “the greatest country on Earth.” Yet, despite widespread reporting of our racial strife, Black immigrants continue to come to America in ever-increasing numbers. Once here, their belief in American greatness remains intact.

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Immigration

Relief among Africans as Biden signs order to end Trump’s travel ban

By Ted Hesson, Mica Rosenberg, Mimi Dwyer, Kristina Cooke | Reuters

WASHINGTON U.S. President Joe Biden signed half a dozen executive orders on Wednesday to reverse several hardline immigration policies put in place by former President Donald Trump. The executive actions, signed at a ceremony at the White House, included immediately lifting a travel ban on 13 mostly Muslim-majority and African countries, halting construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall and reversing a Trump order preventing migrants who are in the United States illegally from being counted for congressional districts.

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Uncategorized

Donald Trump deports 70 Somalis from America

By GAROWE ONLINE

At least 70 Somalis were on Friday deported from the US after failing in a lawsuit led
against the State Department of Immigration, in one of the most dramatic incidents which wrap up the unpopular administration of Donald Trump, who was overwhelmingly voted out in November as the US president.

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Immigration

Trump’s parting gift echos his immigration policies toward Africa

By ANTHONY AKAEZE  |  Baptist News Global

Africans look with dismay on the parting gift U.S. President Donald Trump has given them:  On the last day of 2020, Trump extended the U.S. government’s ban on green cards and work visas, which his administration imposed in April last year as the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe. The new order, like the first one, was meant to ensure that American workers didn’t lose jobs to foreign nationals desiring to migrate to the United States, the administration said. But in Africa, even before the coronavirus outbreak, Trump’s immigration policies had been particularly felt.

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Immigration

Biden Promises to End Trump’s Muslim and African ‘Travel Ban’. But Its Legacy Will Be Felt for Years

BY SANYA MANSOOR | Time

Afnan Salem’s father, a Somali citizen living in Malaysia, has been waiting three years for United States immigration authorities to allow him to come to Ohio to live with his family. But Trump’s severe travel restrictions on many visas for those with citizenship from more than a dozen predominantly African and Muslim-majority countries, including Somalia, means he is, at least temporarily, barred from entry.

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Immigration

‘Betrayed’ Black asylum seekers say Trump administration is ramping up deportations by force and fraud

By MOLLY O’TOOLE, ANDREA CASTILLO | Los Angeles Times

Owning a small business in Cameroon selling French products was enough to trap the young man between the English-speaking minority and French-speaking majority government in the warring West African nation. In July 2019, he was kidnapped by armed rebels, who tortured him for months in the jungle, demanding $10,000 ransom from his family, he said. Then, shortly after they paid, government forces arrested and tortured him for another month — for “financing” the separatists.

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Immigration

Citizens of 15 African countries will have to post bonds of up to $15,000 to visit the US
Donald Trump

By AFP

The Trump Administration has imposed new rules on citizens of 15 African countries who will now will have to post bonds of up to $15,000 (£11,000) to visit the US, according to a new temporary travel rule which comes into effect on 24 December.

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Immigration

Nigeria leads China for asylum claims to Canada despite Covid-19

By Yomi Kazeem | Quartz Africa

In February, data showed that, for the fifth year in a row, more Nigerians emigrated to Canada in 2019 than the year before. Another marker of that exodus is that the number of Nigerians issued permanent residence (PR) permits by the Canadian government has tripled since 2015. 

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Uncategorized

DJ Switch | Canada may have granted asylum to #EndSARS protester

By Arise News

Strong indications have emerged that Canada may have granted asylum to DJ Switch, the #EndSARS protester who streamed live the shooting of protesters by the army at Lekki Toll gate in Lagos State on October 20, 2020. DJ Switch sought asylum following what she said were “several attempts” on her life.

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Immigration

The Africans Among Them

By Jaylin Ward | Truth Be Told

The woman who said a doctor at an immigrant detention center removed one of her fallopian tubes without her consent doesn’t quite fit the Trump administration’s suggested image of a desperate illegal alien sneaking across the border from Mexico. She is 30 years old, has a 12-year-old American-born daughter, and has lived in the United States for more than two decades.

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Uncategorized

Hoax embassy pages falsely claim Trump made visa announcements for Kenya and Liberia

By Mary Kulundu |  AFP Kenya    

Posts claiming that the US has announced permanent “E-visas” for Kenya and Liberia have been shared multiple times on Facebook. The claim is false; the claim was shared by Facebook pages impersonating those of the two African nations’ embassies, which both dismissed the announcements as hoaxes.

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Immigration

Nigeria is the only African country barred from US visa lottery for 2022

By Chike Olisah| Nairametrics

The United States government has barred Nigerian citizens from participating in the US Visa Lottery for 2022. This disclosure is contained in a document, ‘Instructions for the 2022 diversity immigrant visa program (dv-2022)’ obtained from the US Department of States website on Thursday, October 15, 2020.

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Immigration

Cameroonian asylum seekers fear deportation means death – Los Angeles Times

By KATE MORRISSEY | The Los Angeles Times

Asylum seekers from Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo are raising the alarm that U.S. immigration officials plan to deport them on a chartered flight as soon as Tuesday morning to countries where they believe they will be immediately arrested and killed.

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Immigration

Protests grow over pending deportations to Cameroon, amid abuse allegations

“We ran from our countries to be protected here. Now, when they are deporting us, our lives will be at risk.”

By Dianne Solis | The Dallas Morning News

A national protest is widening over the pending deportations of dozens of Cameroon-born immigrants who lawyers and other advocates say were abused in U.S. detention centers and could face death if sent back to their homeland.

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Immigration

The United States Must Not Deport People to Cameroon

By Amnesty International

Amnesty International USA calls upon the Trump administration to refrain from deporting people to Cameroon, as the administration schedules deportations this week from Alexandria Airport in Louisiana. The organization is also concerned about the threat of imminent deportation of Cameroonians now being held at the Prairieland detention center in Texas.

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