thumb nail ohio The town is struggling with a sudden influx of African refugees, whose population has nearly doubled in the past year.
Rockland, near Cincinnati, is home to 3,500 people as of 2023, but local officials have since said it has accepted more than 3,000 legal Mauritanian asylum seekers.
“If you look at 2021, 2022, there has been a huge influx of immigrants from Mauritania in the United States,” Rockland Village Administrator Doug Wehmeyer said. fox news digital.
‘Anyway, a lot of them landed in Rockland.’
TikTok is partly responsible for the flash flood. Mauritanians are finding their way to their villages through routes published on the app, looping from the north-west African country to Turkey, through South America and on to the United States.
This year, the discovery of a new route through Nicaragua with relaxed entry requirements could lead to a new surge in migration from Mauritania to the United States. Photo: Mauritanians gather for a traditional meal in Cincinnati, Friday, July 21, 2023.
Rockland, near Cincinnati, had 3,500 residents last year, but local officials said it has since accepted more than 3,000 legitimate Mauritanian asylum seekers.
The discovery of a new route through Nicaragua earlier this year made possible a new surge in migration, which alarmed U.S. officials.
This route passes through Managua, Nicaragua. The relaxed entry requirements will allow Mauritanians and a small number of other foreigners to purchase cheaper visas without a travel document in the future.
From there, migrants travel north by bus with the help of smugglers, along with asylum seekers from other countries.
Video promises ‘the American dream is still possible’ TikTok – One of dozens of similar posts from French-speaking ‘guides’ helping people in Mauritania travel. ‘Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’
‘We wish you success. ‘Nicaragua loves you very much,’ a man working at a travel agency said in Spanish in another video.
“Last year, it was inflated,” Rockland Mayor Mark Mason told the ABC affiliate. WCPO.
‘I think TikTok stories telling people how to get to the town of Lockland have helped with our explosive growth.’
Mason said the Biden administration’s lax border policies must be urgently fixed or immigration will continue to spiral out of control. Most asylum seekers enter the country legally.
‘The federal government’s open border policy has left this immigrant population explosion as a problem for small towns like Rockland to deal with,’ he said.
‘If they’re going to have an open borders policy, they’re going to need policies that direct immigrants into communities that can withstand that kind of population explosion. ‘A 1.2 square mile town is not sustainable.’
<img decoding="async" id="i-95c191ec0d7e600b" src="https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/10/27/16/91342103-14007845-image-a-9_1730047259170.jpg" height="423" width="634" alt="A small town in Ohio is struggling with a sudden influx of African refugees, whose population has nearly doubled in the past year. Mauritanians are flocking to Rockland” class=”blkBorder img-share” style=”max-width:100%” loading=”lazy”/>
A small town in Ohio is struggling with a sudden influx of African refugees, whose population has nearly doubled in the past year. Mauritanians are flocking to Rockland
Mason added that many of Mauritania’s 3,000 immigrants do not pay taxes because they are unable to work.
“We are currently looking at a shortfall of about $200,000 in income tax revenue,” he said.
Rockland Village Administrator and Fire Chief Doug Wehmyer said the influx of people has put an increased strain on emergency services.
He said calls to the fire department had increased by 12% this year, with almost all the additional calls being made to complexes where Mauritanians live.
This is partly because the migrants are crammed into about 200 units, with a dozen or more people, and cooking fires are common.
“On a more serious note, we responded to a structure fire involving two apartments within the Mulberry Court complex, which entailed the evacuation of literally hundreds of Mauritanians,” Wehmeyer told WCPO.
‘In 35 years of working in the fire brigade, I have never seen anyone standing outside the building like I did when I arrived.’
The influx of Mauritanians took U.S. officials by surprise.
This was achieved without a precipitating event such as a natural disaster, coup or sudden economic collapse, suggesting the growing power of social media to reshape migration patterns.
From March to June, more than 8,500 Mauritanians arrived in the country after crossing the border illegally from Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. This is an increase from 1,000 four months ago.
The new arrivals now outnumber the approximately 8,000 foreign-born Mauritanians previously living in the United States, about half of whom are in Ohio.
Rockland Village Administrator and Fire Chief Doug Wehmyer said the influx of people has put an increased strain on emergency services.
Rockland officials said calls to the fire department are up 12% this year, as seen in the heat map above, and nearly all of the additional calls were to complexes where Mauritanians live.
Many arrived as refugees in the 1990s after the Arab-led military government began expelling its black citizens.
Some who have left say they are fleeing renewed state violence targeting black Mauritanians.
As racial tensions have risen since the death of Oumar Diop, a young black man, in police custody in May, the government has moved aggressively to suppress protests and cut off the country’s mobile internet connectivity.
The country was one of the last to criminalize slavery, and the practice is widely believed to persist in some parts of the country.
Several Mauritanians interviewed by The Associated Press said police targeted them because of their anti-slavery activism.
‘Life is very difficult, especially for the black population in Mauritania,’ said Ibrahima Sou, 38, who described himself as an activist in the country.
‘The authorities have become threatening and repressive.’
People waiting to apply for asylum after crossing the border from Mexico line up at the border wall, Tuesday, July 11, 2023, near Yuma, Arizona. Thousands of migrants from Mauritania in North Africa have arrived in the United States in recent months along a new route across the southern border with Nicaragua.