Proposed Bill Would Allow Mauritanians Fleeing Slavery in Ohio a Temporary Protected Status

Congressman Greg Landsman, who represents Ohio’s first district, announced a bill on Jan. 19 that would provide Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Mauritanian immigrants living in the United States. The TPS for Mauritania Act, introduced by Landsman, Congressman Mike Carey (R-OH-15), Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH-03), and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), would protect Mauritanians living in the U.S. from deportation for up to 18 months.

During a sit-down interview with CityBeat, Landsman said the work to protect Mauritanians started before his team settled into office last year.

“It started even before getting sworn in, and the immigration casework has made a huge difference in terms of appreciating more fully what these folks are going through,” he said. “We're not going to send people back who will be either murdered or enslaved. And in this case, that is what will happen. They will disappear.”

About Mauritania

Located in West Africa, Mauritania has a historical pattern of political and social dominance by an Arab-Berber elite minority who have cultural ties to Saharan nations. In contrast, the majority ethnic groups in the southern regions of Mauritania have historically faced social and political oppression, including forced displacement and slavery.

Despite slavery being criminalized in Mauritania in 2007, human rights observers say the practice is ongoing, with some 30-60,000 Black Mauritanians enslaved today, or about 10-20% of the nation’s 3.4 million residents, according to the United Nations.

Facing harsh prison sentences and conditions, restricted free speech and human trafficking, many Mauritanians have fled to the U.S., with most settling in Cincinnati and Columbus.

Estimates of how many Mauritanians are living in Cincinnati vary. Ousmane Sow, a local advocate for Mauritanian immigrants and refugees, gave CityBeat an estimate.

“To get a good guesstimate, I would say probably close to 8,000 to 9,000 between Cincinnati and the surrounding areas, including Northern Kentucky,” he said.

“Another segment of the population that is totally unknown”

Sow said his journey to the U.S. was a little different than most Mauritanians. Born and raised in Mauritania, he studied English language and literature before moving to the U.S. on a student visa to study at Xavier University, where he met his wife. He said most Mauritanians move to the U.S. not for education, but to flee violence and find work with other Mauritanians, most often in the industrial sector, but that they often go unnoticed.

“These communities, when they do come here, they tend to want to go to work, do their job, come back and stay bunkered into their apartments and don't bother anyone,” he said. “It becomes just another segment of the population that is totally unknown to the general population.”

This isolation is one of the problems Sow is addressing as president of Tabital Pulaagu, a local apolitical organization that connects Mauritanians to the communities where they’ve settled. Sow said he helps to promote English language proficiency and events that break the cycle of “bunkering” home after work.

“To get the people to understand that they don't have to be in a shadow, to help cultivate this sense of belonging [when they study the English language], because it’s the biggest barrier,” he said. “The second [goal] that we are doing that I think is starting to help is having these organizations in the forefront that can join a meeting or can attend other events where we can increase ourselves as Mauritanians and leaders of the community.”

In addition to cultural events, Sow said Tabital Pulaagu will meet with local leaders in business, healthcare and politics to form a relationship with Mauritanians. He said this is crucial for younger generations.

“There's almost a second generation being born that has citizenship that have the right to vote. And people like myself, who've been here a long time who have citizenship and can vote,” he said. “Politicians know that we are here. If you'd like to get our vote, here are our needs, but we need from you to speak on our behalf.”

That level of accountability and representation is not what Mauritanians are accustomed to, said Sow, which is why passing the TPS for Mauritania Act is his most pressing, urgent priority.

“Please call your elected officials, whether it's local, or in Washington, reach out, make these phone calls in support of this plan,” he said. “The Mauritanian community needs this plan for the safety of these individuals before they get sent back to be tortured and to be imprisoned and potentially get killed.”

Just one piece of immigration reform

Protecting Mauritanians from imminent danger is one piece of a much larger push by Landsman and others in Congress to reform a decades-old immigration system, one that the freshman congressman calls “deeply inhumane.”

“All of these people, they leave their homes, and they know that because of this broken asylum immigration process, they will be here for years before their hearing,” he said. “Then when they have a hearing, three or four years later, they’re sent back.”

Landsman was one of 14 Democrats who voted alongside Republicans to denounce President Joe Biden's “open-border policy” in a Jan. 17 resolution. While he said he didn’t have a chance to offer amendments to the resolution’s “garbage” use of the terms “illegal aliens” and “gotaways,” he said it was a vote to support his push for border funding that he said will translate into a more humane experience for asylum seekers.

“When we start to fully fund our immigration system and have the judges and personnel there, [settling in the U.S.] will take months, if not weeks,” he said. “At which point you won't have people leaving everything behind only to be detained and or shipped somewhere where they are living in an airport in Chicago or New York. You know, how is that humane?”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has demanded that any new aid for Ukraine be tied to sweeping policies on border migration, which Landsman said can be, at least in part, remedied by agreements coming out of the Senate – we just don’t know what those are, yet.

“What's emerging from the Senate side is a bipartisan agreement, the details of which we don't have yet, but it is the fully funding of not just Border Patrol but arguably more importantly, the immigration judges and personnel so that the big thing is we get the process from years to months, if not weeks. You will not see the border overwhelmed.”

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