• About 4.6 million, or one in 10, Black people living in American are immigrants, according to a January report from Pew Research Center.
• Although they are only 7% of the non-citizen population, Black immigrants make up 20% of deportations on criminal grounds, according to a 2018 Black Alliance for Just Immigration report.

When the Lyoya family arrived in the United States in 2014 after facing years of war and persecution in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the refugees thought they had finally made it.

They 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.

“They told us that in America, there’s peace, there’s safety, you’re not going to see killing anymore, that it was basically a safe haven,” Dorcas Lyoya said in Congolese during an interview with the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, through a translator. 

But this month, her first-born son, Patrick Lyoya, was fatally shot in the back of the head by a police officer after a struggle, an incident that has outraged civil rights advocates and led to protests in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

WHAT WE KNOW:Patrick Lyoya killed after struggle with officer during Grand Rapids traffic stop

Lyoya’s death and others like it can rattle the sense of security of Black immigrants and refugees who came to the U.S. to escape violence only to find themselves vulnerable to the same brutality and racism African Americans encounter from police as well as the additional specter of federal immigration authorities, immigration advocates told USA TODAY.

“It’s shocking to Black migrants who have this vision of the United States as the land of the free and the home of the brave,” said Nana Gyamfi, executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration. “There’s a notion that police here are going to be different.”

Patrick Lyoya’s death brings fear in growing Black immigrant community

About 4.6 million, or 1 in 10, Black people living in American are immigrants and that number is projected to double by 2060, according to a January report from Pew Research Center. The Black immigrant population is racially and ethnically diverse, but in the last decade Africans have become one of the fastest growing segments through refugee admissions and the diversity visa lottery program, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Although refugee admissions hit a record low in 2021, over the past two fiscal years people from the Congo became the the largest group of refugees to settle in Michigan, according to data from the U.S. State Department. 

Grand Rapids is home to the largest Congolese refugee population in the state thanks to employment opportunities as well as family and social connections like churches, said Chris Cavanaugh, director of Samaritas’ New American Resettlement program in West Michigan.

‘OUR COMMUNITY DESERVES ANSWERS’:Michigan police release video of fatal shooting of Patrick Lyoya after traffic stop in Grand Rapids

Samaritas helps refugees meet many of their immediate needs and offers a cultural orientation on what it means to live life in America, he said. But they didn’t talk much about the racial implications of being Black in America until George Floyd’s murder sparked a nationwide racial justice protest movement in 2020, which Cavanaugh said a number of Congolese refugees joined.

In the wake of Lyoya’s death, Cavanaugh said Samaritas is hoping to support refugee communities by providing resources to help them access services in their native language including during interactions with law enforcement.

“Certainly the Congolese community is feeling some fear, kind of scared over what happened and I would say rightfully so,” Cavanaugh said. “Those maybe who have much less English skills are just more apprehensive about getting pulled over or how they’re supposed to respond in certain situations.”

A history of violence, from Amadou Diallo in 1999 to Botham Jean in 2018

Many Black immigrants and refugees are surprised when they encounter violence from both police and immigration officials, Gyamfi said.

“We have to deal with the violence that police inflict on us because we’re Black,” Gyamfi said. “And then the additional violence that then often is inflicted on us by ICE in this immigration enforcement system because of our migrant status.”

But Black migrants have long been subjected to the same racism and brutality that disproportionately affects Black Americans.

‘I’M LEAVING, AND I’M JUST NOT COMING BACK’:Fed up with racism, Black Americans head overseas

Protests broke out for several weeks in 1999 after Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo was killed by four white police officers in New York City who said they thought his wallet was a gun. All four officers were acquitted of second-degree murder charges. That same year, Patrick Dorismond, a 26-year-old Haitian American, was killed by police sparking another wave of protests in New York. 

In 2016, prosecutors declined to charge a suburban San Diego police officer for fatally shooting 38-year-old Alfred Olango, who arrived in the United States as a refugee from Uganda in 1991. Then, Amber Guyger, a former Dallas police officer, was convicted of murder for the 2018 killing of Botham Jean, a native of the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. 

‘Double-barreled racism’ embedded in immigration laws, law enforcement

Black immigrants are also disproportionately detained and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Bill Ong Hing, a law and migration studies professor at the University of San Francisco.

“Embedded in the immigration laws are these anti-Black aspects beginning with the visa system,” Hing said. “They face this double-barreled racism when it comes to law enforcement.”

Although they are only 7% of the non-citizen population, Black immigrants make up 20% of those deported on criminal grounds, according to a 2018 report from the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.

Even minor offenses can trigger deportation proceedings, which can make common interactions with police like traffic stops more tense. Black drivers in Michigan are more likely to be pulled over, searched and arrested by troopers, a study of 2020 traffic stops found.

OPINION:Police should stop making minor traffic stops that too often turn into major tragedies

“The way that most Black migrants end up getting deported is through contact with the police,” Gyamfi said. “There is an awareness that this can happen and there is a lot of anxiety around any type of police contact.”

Hing, founder of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said more immigration advocacy organizations began paying attention to this issue in the wake of Floyd’s death. Personal experiences of racism and high-profile cases like Lyoya’s have also started to shift the way Black migrants view themselves.

“They may start out seeing themselves as different from African Americans, but realize that the mainstream, including the police, treat them like any other Black person which is not good,” he said.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Contact Breaking News Reporter N’dea Yancey-Bragg at nyanceybra@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter @NdeaYanceyBragg

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The AU was established with a vision to achieve “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in global arena.” Hence, the birth of the AU marked a shift in the focus of Africa’s foremost pan-African institution away from mainly the support of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid (liberation) movements to the task of greater integration for expedited development.

I am happy that the Thabo Mbeki Foundation has chosen, as its focus for 2022, the history and evaluation of the African Union, which was officially launched twenty years ago in South Africa.

The African Union (AU), Africa’s foremost continental organisation, has come of age. Some twenty years ago, in July of 2002, this prestigious African institution came into being in continuance of the Pan-African vision of an independent, united and prosperous Africa shared by the continent’s independent leadership, for which they set up its parent institution, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). This occasion of the commemoration of the African Union’s twentieth anniversary provides an opportunity for all of Africa to come together and listen to each other as a way of determining how well the continental organisation has fared in achieving the goals for which it was set up; what challenges have limited its success; how to surmount these challenges; and what opportunities there are in a fully operational continental organisation in today’s global geopolitics.

The establishment of the OAU on May 25, 1963 marked the culmination of diverse and far-reaching political trends, on and off the continent. Its ideological basis can be found in the late nineteenth century Pan-Africanist movement, which had its origins amongst Black American intellectuals — Martin Delany and Alexander Crummel — in the United States of America (USA). Canvassing for a Black nation independent of the U.S.A as the only means to ensuring the prosperity of Black peoples, their ideas caught on and were further developed by W. E. B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, who urged a return to the continent. The Pan-African idea was picked up and advanced on the continent by several prominent intellectuals and heads of state, including Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and Sekou Toure of Guinea. These individuals provided practical expressions of Pan-African ideals in Africa, applying them to the African reality of colonial subjugation and other forms of foreign oppression. 

Therefore, when the Heads of Africa’s thirty-two independent states gathered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to sign the OAU Charter in 1963, it was with a common belief that for Africa to achieve its potential and aspirations, it must be free from external control, and its peoples must rise above racial, ethnic, and national differences and work together cooperatively in the spirit of brotherhood and solidarity. As a result, Article II of the OAU’s founding Charter included an agenda to promote African unity and solidarity; coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for Africa’s people; protect their sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence; obliterate all forms of colonialism in Africa; and encourage international cooperation, with due regard for the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Armed with a pledge of cooperation in all aspects of social endeavour, politics, economics, education, health, science, and defence by member states, the OAU immediately embarked upon what was then the foremost obstacle to its agenda of a united and prosperous Africa — the struggle for the independence of all African states under colonialism and other forms of foreign oppression (apartheid). In this regard, the OAU Coordinating Committee for the Liberation of Africa swung into action, organising diplomatic, financial, and logistical support for liberation movements wherever they existed in Africa. The organisation was involved in the independence agitation of Guinea Bissau, Angola, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Namibia (former South West Africa) and the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa. It was also active in defending its member nations’ integrity and sovereignty, and resolving border disputes. This impact was especially observed in the Congo, where strategic raw materials have always been a source of unrest, in Nigeria during a civil war that threatened the unity of the Federal Republic, and in Egypt during the 1967 Israeli occupation.

In pursuance of its mandate, the AU has recorded reasonable successes through direct contributions and international community collaborations. It has been active in minimising and settling conflicts in conflict-prone areas like Somalia and Sudan; it has successfully arbitrated post-election violent conflicts in Kenya, Comoros and Cote de’ Ivoire; and it has intervened in coup situations by ensuring a return back to civilian rule.

Another landmark achievement of the OAU was the ambition to create an economically integrated Africa. In this instance, it was instrumental to the establishment of Regional Economic Communities (RECS), notably the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMMESA), the South African Development Coordinating Commission (SADCC), and the Arab Maghreb Union. In addition, it established the African Economic Community (AEC) in 1991, which was expected to expand into a common market, a customs union, and an African monetary union.

Notwithstanding the OAU’s commendable achievements, its membership identified a need to refocus the organisation’s attention away from its decolonisation agenda and more towards promoting peace and stability as a prerequisite to an eventual political and economic integration that will ensure African interests in an increasingly geopolitically quartered world. To that effect, the Heads of Government of the OAU came to a consensus and issued the Sirte Declaration of September 1999, calling for the establishment of an African Union that would accelerate the process of integration on the continent to enable her to compete favourably in a changing global economy and address any social and political challenges arising from globalisation. Thus, the African Union (AU) came into existence in 2002.

The AU was established with a vision to achieve “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in global arena.” Hence, the birth of the AU marked a shift in the focus of Africa’s foremost pan-African institution away from mainly the support of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid (liberation) movements to the task of greater integration for expedited development. Among the AU’s stated goals are: Achieving greater unity and solidarity among African countries and peoples; defending the territorial integrity and independence of its member states; accelerating the continent’s political and socio-economic integration; promoting common positions on issues of concern to the continent and its peoples; promoting sustainable economic, political, and cultural development; fostering cooperation in all fields of human endeavour to raise African peoples’ living standards; protecting and promoting human and people’s rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights; and promoting peace, security, and stability on the continent.

In pursuance of its mandate, the AU has recorded reasonable successes through direct contributions and international community collaborations. It has been active in minimising and settling conflicts in conflict-prone areas like Somalia and Sudan; it has successfully arbitrated post-election violent conflicts in Kenya, Comoros and Cote de’ Ivoire; and it has intervened in coup situations by ensuring a return back to civilian rule. Unrestricted by the OAU’s ‘non-interference’ concept, the AU has reserved the authority, through its Peace and Security Council, to intervene in the domestic affairs of member nations to promote peace and safeguard democracy, even employing military action in circumstances of genocide and crimes against humanity. Through its voluntary ‘Peer Review Mechanism’, whereby individual member states concede to be assessed by a group of experts collected from other member states, the AU has been able to encourage democracy and good governance on the continent. The AU has also established a practice of sending election monitoring teams (Observer Missions) to all member states to guarantee that the terms of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance (2007) are followed.

Many untapped opportunities can be gained from an objective, independent, and people-oriented continental union. Without some of the AU’s encumbrances — vested interests and constitutional limitations — the continental organisation can do much more to ensure good governance, peace, stability and economic prosperity through extensive collaborative networks that transcend any cultural, national, and regional divide.

The AU has demonstrated strategic leadership on the continent. Africa has presented a common front on several issues that have shaped global debates and decisions through its activities. It had some impact on the terms of engagement between the UN and regional organisations. By achieving an African consensus, it has been able to drum support for African candidates vying for positions in international organisations, such as Nigeria’s Okonjo Iweala as director-general of the World Trade Organisation, Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as secretary-general of the World Health Organisation, and Rwanda’s Louise Mushikiwabo as secretary-general of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. The AU has also demonstrated commendable leadership and served as an advisor to governments and intergovernmental agencies.

In pursuit of its agenda of African prosperity, the AU put necessary declarations and institutions in place that promote economic integration among its fifty-four member states. It has established development organisations such as the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD and progressive frameworks such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and Agenda 2063. There have been proposals for an African Monetary Union and an African Central Bank, even though these have not seen a political will by member states to bring them to fruition. The AU also made considerable efforts to ensure that the COVID-19 vaccines are available to its member states.

Financial dependence, poorly governed states and a constant push for reforms have been identified as some of the impediments to the AU’s progress. Other factors identified include the development of the ‘cult of personality, concentration of power in the office of the chairperson of the commission and the shrinking spaces for popular participation in decision making.’ The AU exhibited some flaws in its decision-making when it relocated its July 2012 bi-annual summit from Lilongwe, Malawi, to Addis Ababa, for the former’s refusal to invite Omar al-Bashar because he had been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Also reprehensible is its practice of appointing leaders with questionable democratic credentials as chairpersons. Other issues that cast aspersion on the AU’s image and performance include its inability to find a lasting solution to Africa’s teeming educated and unemployed youths, the recent resurgence of coups and violent conflicts, and its romance with China, which has seen the latter gain increasing and unbalanced concessions on the continent.

Many untapped opportunities can be gained from an objective, independent, and people-oriented continental union. Without some of the AU’s encumbrances — vested interests and constitutional limitations — the continental organisation can do much more to ensure good governance, peace, stability and economic prosperity through extensive collaborative networks that transcend any cultural, national, and regional divide. To achieve this, the AU must be seen to uphold the highest standards and be more people-oriented.

Toyin Falola, a professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin, is the Bobapitan of Ibadanland.

Source

The AU was established with a vision to achieve “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in global arena.” Hence, the birth of the AU marked a shift in the focus of Africa’s foremost pan-African institution away from mainly the support of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid (liberation) movements to the task of greater integration for expedited development.

I am happy that the Thabo Mbeki Foundation has chosen, as its focus for 2022, the history and evaluation of the African Union, which was officially launched twenty years ago in South Africa.

The African Union (AU), Africa’s foremost continental organisation, has come of age. Some twenty years ago, in July of 2002, this prestigious African institution came into being in continuance of the Pan-African vision of an independent, united and prosperous Africa shared by the continent’s independent leadership, for which they set up its parent institution, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). This occasion of the commemoration of the African Union’s twentieth anniversary provides an opportunity for all of Africa to come together and listen to each other as a way of determining how well the continental organisation has fared in achieving the goals for which it was set up; what challenges have limited its success; how to surmount these challenges; and what opportunities there are in a fully operational continental organisation in today’s global geopolitics.

The establishment of the OAU on May 25, 1963 marked the culmination of diverse and far-reaching political trends, on and off the continent. Its ideological basis can be found in the late nineteenth century Pan-Africanist movement, which had its origins amongst Black American intellectuals — Martin Delany and Alexander Crummel — in the United States of America (USA). Canvassing for a Black nation independent of the U.S.A as the only means to ensuring the prosperity of Black peoples, their ideas caught on and were further developed by W. E. B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, who urged a return to the continent. The Pan-African idea was picked up and advanced on the continent by several prominent intellectuals and heads of state, including Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and Sekou Toure of Guinea. These individuals provided practical expressions of Pan-African ideals in Africa, applying them to the African reality of colonial subjugation and other forms of foreign oppression. 

Therefore, when the Heads of Africa’s thirty-two independent states gathered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to sign the OAU Charter in 1963, it was with a common belief that for Africa to achieve its potential and aspirations, it must be free from external control, and its peoples must rise above racial, ethnic, and national differences and work together cooperatively in the spirit of brotherhood and solidarity. As a result, Article II of the OAU’s founding Charter included an agenda to promote African unity and solidarity; coordinate and intensify their cooperation and efforts to achieve a better life for Africa’s people; protect their sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence; obliterate all forms of colonialism in Africa; and encourage international cooperation, with due regard for the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Armed with a pledge of cooperation in all aspects of social endeavour, politics, economics, education, health, science, and defence by member states, the OAU immediately embarked upon what was then the foremost obstacle to its agenda of a united and prosperous Africa — the struggle for the independence of all African states under colonialism and other forms of foreign oppression (apartheid). In this regard, the OAU Coordinating Committee for the Liberation of Africa swung into action, organising diplomatic, financial, and logistical support for liberation movements wherever they existed in Africa. The organisation was involved in the independence agitation of Guinea Bissau, Angola, Mozambique, Central African Republic, Namibia (former South West Africa) and the struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa. It was also active in defending its member nations’ integrity and sovereignty, and resolving border disputes. This impact was especially observed in the Congo, where strategic raw materials have always been a source of unrest, in Nigeria during a civil war that threatened the unity of the Federal Republic, and in Egypt during the 1967 Israeli occupation.

In pursuance of its mandate, the AU has recorded reasonable successes through direct contributions and international community collaborations. It has been active in minimising and settling conflicts in conflict-prone areas like Somalia and Sudan; it has successfully arbitrated post-election violent conflicts in Kenya, Comoros and Cote de’ Ivoire; and it has intervened in coup situations by ensuring a return back to civilian rule.

Another landmark achievement of the OAU was the ambition to create an economically integrated Africa. In this instance, it was instrumental to the establishment of Regional Economic Communities (RECS), notably the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMMESA), the South African Development Coordinating Commission (SADCC), and the Arab Maghreb Union. In addition, it established the African Economic Community (AEC) in 1991, which was expected to expand into a common market, a customs union, and an African monetary union.

Notwithstanding the OAU’s commendable achievements, its membership identified a need to refocus the organisation’s attention away from its decolonisation agenda and more towards promoting peace and stability as a prerequisite to an eventual political and economic integration that will ensure African interests in an increasingly geopolitically quartered world. To that effect, the Heads of Government of the OAU came to a consensus and issued the Sirte Declaration of September 1999, calling for the establishment of an African Union that would accelerate the process of integration on the continent to enable her to compete favourably in a changing global economy and address any social and political challenges arising from globalisation. Thus, the African Union (AU) came into existence in 2002.

The AU was established with a vision to achieve “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in global arena.” Hence, the birth of the AU marked a shift in the focus of Africa’s foremost pan-African institution away from mainly the support of anti-colonial and anti-apartheid (liberation) movements to the task of greater integration for expedited development. Among the AU’s stated goals are: Achieving greater unity and solidarity among African countries and peoples; defending the territorial integrity and independence of its member states; accelerating the continent’s political and socio-economic integration; promoting common positions on issues of concern to the continent and its peoples; promoting sustainable economic, political, and cultural development; fostering cooperation in all fields of human endeavour to raise African peoples’ living standards; protecting and promoting human and people’s rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights; and promoting peace, security, and stability on the continent.

In pursuance of its mandate, the AU has recorded reasonable successes through direct contributions and international community collaborations. It has been active in minimising and settling conflicts in conflict-prone areas like Somalia and Sudan; it has successfully arbitrated post-election violent conflicts in Kenya, Comoros and Cote de’ Ivoire; and it has intervened in coup situations by ensuring a return back to civilian rule. Unrestricted by the OAU’s ‘non-interference’ concept, the AU has reserved the authority, through its Peace and Security Council, to intervene in the domestic affairs of member nations to promote peace and safeguard democracy, even employing military action in circumstances of genocide and crimes against humanity. Through its voluntary ‘Peer Review Mechanism’, whereby individual member states concede to be assessed by a group of experts collected from other member states, the AU has been able to encourage democracy and good governance on the continent. The AU has also established a practice of sending election monitoring teams (Observer Missions) to all member states to guarantee that the terms of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance (2007) are followed.

Many untapped opportunities can be gained from an objective, independent, and people-oriented continental union. Without some of the AU’s encumbrances — vested interests and constitutional limitations — the continental organisation can do much more to ensure good governance, peace, stability and economic prosperity through extensive collaborative networks that transcend any cultural, national, and regional divide.

The AU has demonstrated strategic leadership on the continent. Africa has presented a common front on several issues that have shaped global debates and decisions through its activities. It had some impact on the terms of engagement between the UN and regional organisations. By achieving an African consensus, it has been able to drum support for African candidates vying for positions in international organisations, such as Nigeria’s Okonjo Iweala as director-general of the World Trade Organisation, Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as secretary-general of the World Health Organisation, and Rwanda’s Louise Mushikiwabo as secretary-general of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. The AU has also demonstrated commendable leadership and served as an advisor to governments and intergovernmental agencies.

In pursuit of its agenda of African prosperity, the AU put necessary declarations and institutions in place that promote economic integration among its fifty-four member states. It has established development organisations such as the African Union Development Agency-NEPAD and progressive frameworks such as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and Agenda 2063. There have been proposals for an African Monetary Union and an African Central Bank, even though these have not seen a political will by member states to bring them to fruition. The AU also made considerable efforts to ensure that the COVID-19 vaccines are available to its member states.

Financial dependence, poorly governed states and a constant push for reforms have been identified as some of the impediments to the AU’s progress. Other factors identified include the development of the ‘cult of personality, concentration of power in the office of the chairperson of the commission and the shrinking spaces for popular participation in decision making.’ The AU exhibited some flaws in its decision-making when it relocated its July 2012 bi-annual summit from Lilongwe, Malawi, to Addis Ababa, for the former’s refusal to invite Omar al-Bashar because he had been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Also reprehensible is its practice of appointing leaders with questionable democratic credentials as chairpersons. Other issues that cast aspersion on the AU’s image and performance include its inability to find a lasting solution to Africa’s teeming educated and unemployed youths, the recent resurgence of coups and violent conflicts, and its romance with China, which has seen the latter gain increasing and unbalanced concessions on the continent.

Many untapped opportunities can be gained from an objective, independent, and people-oriented continental union. Without some of the AU’s encumbrances — vested interests and constitutional limitations — the continental organisation can do much more to ensure good governance, peace, stability and economic prosperity through extensive collaborative networks that transcend any cultural, national, and regional divide. To achieve this, the AU must be seen to uphold the highest standards and be more people-oriented.

Toyin Falola, a professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin, is the Bobapitan of Ibadanland.

Source