Universal Human Rights International
December 13,, 2021
For Immediate Release: Press Statement
Humanitarian Alarm: Over 6000 Liberians At Risk
Demand For Equal Protection Of All Liberian Refugees Currently In The USA Demand For Mitigation Of Ongoing Harm Unleashed By Congress Against Blacks Request For Emergency Covid-19 State-funded Aid For Refugees Denied Work Permits
Contact: Rev. Torli H. Krua-857-249-9983 / torli@uhriinc.org
Boston, Massachusetts-As potentially deadly winter descends on North America, a humanitarian crisis looms over the Liberian community and communities across the United States where Liberians reside.
About 6,000 Liberian Refugees are at serious risk of infection and death due to the impending potentially deadly 2022 winter and even deadlier Covid-19 Pandemic that has killed over 700,000 vulnerable Americans. Now is the time to end this unnecessary humanitarian crisis created by racism. We call on Representative Bud Williams to lead this fight against American Apartheid and officially sanctioned racism that has gone on for centuries.
Discrimination against Liberians started long before Liberia was founded by the United States. On March 26, 1790, the US Congress envisioned, conceived, weaponized, unleashed and codified a racist law against Americans of color. The law enacted by Congress disenfranchised all people of color, when Congress made the skin color of a human being the requirement for United States citizenship. That law is no longer on the books but the harm it unleashed against Americans and Blacks continues unabated. The harm will continue until Congress passes a law to mitigate the ongoing harm it unnecessarily initiated.
The US Congress of 1790, dominated by white supremacists and slaveholders initiated ongoing harm within Native American, African American and Liberian communities through illegal American Colonization and banishment of Americans illegally using American taxes, the force of the US Military.
There’s not a single American alive today responsible for the atrocities, brutalities and inhumane acts of slavery and racism initiated by slaveholding and racist dead members of Congress in the name of the United States centuries ago. However, as the ongoing illegal harm unleashed against Black Americans and people of color on distant shores in West Africa continues unabated in 2021, it’s now our collective obligation to act in our official responsibilities and our capacities as citizens of the United States to mitigate the harm, rectify the wrong and initiate atonement, repentance, reparations and reconciliation. This action would, doubtless, hold back
the floodgates of America’s mounting iniquities destined to erode the foundations and hasten the demise of the great United States of America! “ Righteousness exalts a nation.” “United we stand, divided we fall.” The choice is clear!
Yes for those who still feel the pain, the harm unleashed by Congress continues unabated. For example, in 1990 during the Liberian Civil War, the US State Department sent a classified cable to Monrovia ordering US Embassy staffers to discriminate against Liberians because of their race and nationality. The cable ordered denial of visas for all Liberian visa applicants on account of their race and nationality, while subjecting Liberian visa applicants to fake interview proceedings, where the outcome was predestined to be visa refusal . The same classified cable ordered preferential treatment and the issuance of visas to foreigners in Liberia, including Lebanese and Indians. Dr. Panjabi, the head of President Biden’s Malaria Initiative was granted a visa to leave Liberia because he wasn’t Black but thousands of Liberians were denied visas and they perished. Moreover, since 1990, the US Embassy continues the discrimination which is earning millions of dollars in “non refundable visa fees’ ‘ collected unlawfully from Liberians in violation of the “equal protection” clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
In the past thirty years, a standardless discriminatory policy denied many Liberian Refugees access to humanitarian assistance while granting other Liberians work permits through Temporary Protected Status (TPS). At the same time, Congress passed a law in 1992 that allowed 52,968 Chinese nationals granted DED after the Tiananmen Square incident to adjust to permanent residency status. The Chinese were not alone. Congress also passed legislation that allowed 150,000 Nicaraguans, 5,000 Cubans, 200,000 El Salvadorans, and 50,000 Guatemalans to adjust to permanent residency status.
The harm due to officially sanctioned racism continued since October 1, 2002, when the Federal Government denied many newly arriving Liberian Refugees access to humanitarian assistance and permission to work, without justifications. Those denied access to humanitarian assistance included Liberian mothers of American children rescued and airlifted to safety from escalating violence of the Liberian Civil War. The Massachusetts Delegation to Congress, led by the late Senator Kennedy intervened, albeit, unsuccessfully.
Fortunately, after decades of advocacy and legal limbo, in December 2019, Congress passed the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act nearly 30 years after the Liberian Refugees arrived in America. President Biden in January 2021 also signed an Executive Order renewing DED work permits for Liberians with DED work permits. Unfortunately, thousands of Liberians were excluded from both reprieves signed by Presidents Trump and Biden.
In the winter of 2021, we have mounting evidence that many Liberians excluded from reprieve are contemplating suicide, as the Delta Variant spreads, increasing health risks for unemployed Liberian refugees in our communities. This reckless disregard for human life based on racism is also putting all Americans at risk because Covid-19 is an equal opportunity destroyer!
This is why with great urgency, we call on Representative Bud Williams and the Massachusetts Black and Latino Caucus to prevail upon Governor Charlie Baker and the Massachusetts Delegation to Congress to quickly perform the following necessary humanitarian interventions to save human lives, and it shouldn’t matter if they’re Black or White:
- Prevail upon Governor Baker to offer state-funded emergency humanitarian financial aid to Liberian refugees who have been denied work permits as well as financial assistance to agencies assisting the Liberian Refugees without humanitarian assistance. According to Article 1 of the Liberian Constitution of 1824, “All persons born in Liberia are entitled to all privileges enjoyed by citizens of the United States.” Originally Liberians were Americans of color removed, colonized and banished from the United States to Africa in implementation of the March 26, 1790 Act of the US Congress that made skin color a requirement for US citizenship. Two hundred years later, Liberian Refugees are still suffering from the harm of unmitigated officially sanctioned racism unleashed by Congress, which poses existential threats to the United States of America!
- Prevail upon the Massachusetts Congressional Delegation and Governor Baker to take the lead in persuading President Biden to urgently issue an Executive Order designating Liberia for Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) work permits, giving all Liberian Refugees across America permission to work. Additionally, as the December20, 2021 deadline looms, we urge inclusion of all Liberians in the US as beneficiaries of the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act and a waiver of filing fees, consistent with Section 245(i). While filing fees were waived for Afghan refugees, unemployed Liberian Refugees were required to pay filing fees in total disregard of Section 245(i) of the US Immigration and Nationality Act that exempts all refugees from paying filing fees.
- Due to widespread racial discrimination and abuse in the international and domestic aid communities which are disproportionately dominated by white people serving constituencies of color, not represented at the board and senior management of tax exempted nonprofit organizations we call for an urgent overhaul to prevent a takeover by members of the White Savior Industrial Complex, including racist missionaries who serve Black people for centuries without community input, culturally competent personnel with lived experiences and without diversity on their board and senior management. The lack of diversity of the board and senior management in these agencies lead to widespread racial discrimination and abuse of traumatized refugees across the United States and worldwide.
- As the first state to legalize slavery and a state which supported American colonization, we call on the leadership of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to request a congressional inquiry into the unmitigated ongoing racial discrimination against Liberians by the US Government which began with acts of Congress, American Colonization and the illegal use of American taxes and the US Navy to implement the American Aparthied law of March 26, 1790. Not only was American Colonization illegal, it was deadly. When white governors ruled Liberia from 1822 until 1842, they imposed crippling and deadly conditions on Americans of color. Of the 4,571 immigrants who arrived from the United
States to Liberia between 1820 and 1843, only 1,819—40%—were still alive in 1843. American Colonization Society officials anxious to enslave Africans but happy to deceive free Blacks to abandon their native country were sending people to their graves. American Apartheid and American Colonization have been ravaging lives of countless descendants of Americans and indigenous Africans in secrecy for two centuries. In 2021, the national budget of Liberia shows how AMerican taxes still incentivize corruption and violence in Liberia.
- The Biden Administration waived filing fees for all Afghans entering the US. Section 245(i) of the US Immigration & Nationality Act exempts all refugees from paying filing fees for green cards. Even so, the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act imposed filling fees on Liberians who have been unemployed for decades and excluded thousands of Liberian Refugees.
- After pleading unsuccessfully to President Biden to declassify the 1990 racist and discriminatory classified cable from Washington to the U.S. Embassy in Liberia secretly ordering staff to deny all Black Liberians visas but issue visas to Lebanese and Indians we have initiated a federal lawsuit seeking a court order to force the US State Department to declassify the illegal racist cable, refund millions of dollars unlawfully unlawfully taken from Liberians and order a commission of inquiry into the ongoing harm of the illegal American Colonization initiated by acts of Congress on March 26, 1790, initiating American Apartheid and March 3, 1819 funding American Colonization and the 1830 Indian Removal Act.
Liberia started as an American colony, created by an Act of Congress, appropriation of $100,000 of American taxes, and the authorization of the United States Navy to enforce American colonization. Ten (10) presidents of Liberia were African Americans born and educated in the United States. The Liberian flag is American–red, white, and blue–with one white star. Liberia’s currency is the U.S. Dollar. As an U. S. colony, Article 1 of the Liberian Constitution of 1824, still in force, gave Liberians rights as Americans: “All persons born…in Liberia, shall be free and entitled to all the privileges as are enjoyed by the citizens of the United States.” Even so, in 2021, Liberia is the fourth most denied country in the world, next to Cuba, Afghanistan and Mauritania to be granted visas to the U.S. Millions of Citizens from 40 countries are allowed to enter the United States without visa yearly. On behalf of all the Liberians who are affected, I sincerely thank you in advance for giving us this opportunity to express this serious matter in order for you to fight for the human rights of all Liberians, especially in this Covid-19 crisis and the winter of 2022. Thank you, once again, and God bless!
