Photo courtesy of Darren Straus

Local community hopes to prevent the deportation of Cameroonian friend

Martin hadn’t planned on coming to the U.S. He really hadn’t ever thought about leaving his native Cameroon. Part of the Anglophone minority, he grew up near Mamfe in the southwestern region of the country. The oldest of five children, he went to school and church regularly while helping on the family cocoa farm. By the time he had finished high school, Martin began his own business, hoping to become a cocoa exporter, a bridge between farmers and large companies. He got his passport with the idea of bringing Cameroon’s cocoa to the rest of the world.

But in October 2017, he used that passport to flee the only home he had ever known. Now, he’s being held at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract detention facility in Aurora, awaiting deportation back to the very place he fled.

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