Cameroonian migrants fear deportation as Trump strips protected status
Cameroonian migrants in the United States say they fear for their lives following the Trump administration’s decision to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of nationals from the conflict-stricken Central African country.
The Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is a legal status granted to individuals from specific countries facing unsafe conditions that prevent them from returning home. This allows them to live and work temporarily in the United States.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that TPS protections will end in June 2025 for approximately 7,900 Cameroonians as part of a sweeping immigration crackdown under President Donald Trump. The administration also ended protections for 14,600 Afghans, whose TPS designations will expire in May.
"I fled after my father was murdered...President Trump knows there’s war in the Anglophone regions, but he wants to deport us,” one Cameroonian asylum seeker told Semafor.
The decision comes despite recent violence in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions, where separatist tensions have triggered a humanitarian crisis. According to a 2024 Human Rights Watch report, more than 638,000 people have been internally displaced, and at least 1.7 million require humanitarian assistance.
Many Cameroonian migrants in the U.S. had sought refuge from this conflict, where government forces and armed separatist groups have been accused of grave human rights abuses.
Immigration advocates and human rights groups have strongly condemned the move, warning it could place thousands at imminent risk of harm if deported. They argue that conditions in Cameroon remain too dangerous to justify returning vulnerable individuals, many of whom fled violence and persecution.
The Trump administration has defended the decision as part of its broader efforts to tighten immigration policy, arguing that TPS designations should not be indefinite.
