Georgetown Law & UBN Life on Hold

A Brief History of U.S. Intervention in the Establishment of Liberia Liberia’s origins as a country are found in the journey of newly-freed Black Americans and the formation of the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1817. The ACS and high-ranking members of the U.S. government, rather than integrate formely-enslaved Black Americans into the republic, elected to send them elsewhere. 57 The founding of the ACS, reveals the ingrained otherization of Black Americans, and the refusal to weave them into the fabric of the country they helped to build. In 1822, the ACS purchased a tract of land and created a settlement of formerly enslaved people in Liberia named Monrovia after James Monroe, the U.S. President who supported the ACS. 58 In 1847, this settlement grew into the free and independent Republic of Liberia. Modern Politics and the Intertwining Grants of TPS and DED for Liberia December 1989 marks the beginning of the two brutal, consecutive civil wars in Liberia that forced many to flee the country due to armed conflict. During this period of time, the Liberian people suffered countless atrocities. Both conflicts were defined by the use of child soldiers, extensive civilian casualties, and widespread sexual violence. Civilians paid the price of these wars with their lives and dignity. 59 The United States first responded to Liberia’s civil war in 1991, when George H.W. Bush’s Administration first granted TPS to Liberians. The decision was directly influenced by the “ongoing armed conflict within Liberia,” and “extraordinary and temporary conditions in Liberia that prevent[ed] … nationals of Liberia from returning to Liberia in safety.” According to the procedure that predated the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, TPS designation at the time fell to the Attorney General. Subsequent U.S. Attorneys General continued to extend Liberian TPS designations regularly, although the designation was eventually set to expire in 1999. However, Liberia’s second civil war also erupted in 1999. Despite this, then-Attorney General Janet Reno announced that she planned on letting TPS expire, due to reports that the first civil war had ended. The “reports” that she cited were not aligned with a State Department report which recommended that U.S. citizens not visit Liberia, due to instability and reported human rights abuses. 60 On the eve of the TPS expiration date in 1999, President Bill Clinton granted relief to Liberians in the form of DED. 61 This move would become a trend demonstrating how protections for Liberians turned into a political hot potato. In the years to come, when a cabinet secretary would fail to extend TPS, a president would exercise his exclusive authority to grant DED. President Clinton’s 1999 DED designation was set to expire in September 2000, but both Republican and Democratic administrations endorsed extending the DED designation until 2002. By 2002, the second civil war in Liberia had worsened, displacing 120,000 Liberians and forcing 75,000 to flee their country. 57 African American Intellectual History Society, https://www.aaihs.org/the-american-colonization-society-200-years-of-the- colonizing-trick/. 58 Macalester College, A History of Liberia, its Conflicts and Diaspora, https://sites.google.com/a/macalester.edu/refugees/liberians (accessed Jan. 1, 2020). 59 World Culture Encyclopedia, Countries and Their Cultures, (accessed March 2021) https://www.everyculture.com/multi/Le-Pa/ Liberian-Americans.html 60 Khalil P. Saucier, Ph.D, Liberian Immigrants in Rhode Island: The Trauma, The Bliss, and The Dilemma, Rhode Island College Department of Sociology; available at http://africamigration.com/issue/dec2011/Khalil-Saucier_Liberian-Immigrants-in-Rhode- Island.pdf. 61 Sussis, Matthew, The History of Temporary Protected Status for Liberia: After nearly three decades, activists pressure the White House for another extension, Center for Immigration Studies, (Mar. 27, 2019), https://cis.org/Sussis/History- Temporary-Protected-Status-Liberia.

Life On Hold: Black Immigrants & the Promise of Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness

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