In May, Aissata Sall discovered the new path to the United States while perusing through WhatsApp. A few weeks later, Ibrahima Sow made the finding on TikTok.
By the time their paths finally collided at the neat one-story brick house in Cincinnati, they had already come across hundreds of other Mauritanians, almost all of whom were travelling along a new road that was becoming increasingly popular among younger migrants from the West African country, largely as a result of social media.
“Four months ago, it just went crazy,” recalled Oumar Ball, a 1997 immigrant from Mauritania who recently welcomed Sow, Sall, and more than a dozen other recent arrivals into his house. “My phone keeps ringing,” I said.
The discovery of a new route through Nicaragua this year, where entry criteria are reduced to allow Mauritanians and a small number of other foreign people to acquire a low-cost visa without providing proof of onward travel, allowed for the increase in migration.
Travel companies and paid influencers have taken to TikTok to advertise the journey as word of the entry point spreads, selling packages of flights that depart from Mauritania, then connect through Turkey, Colombia, and El Salvador, and finally land in Managua, Nicaragua. From there, the migrants are transported north by bus with the aid of traffickers, along with asylum applicants from other countries.
A video on TikTok proclaims, “The American dream is still available,” and there are dozens of more uploads with a similar message from French-speaking “guides” who assist Mauritanians in travelling. “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can accomplish today.”
“We hope you do well. In another video, a man who works for a travel agency exclaims in Spanish, “Nicaragua loves you very much.
Officials in the United States are astonished by the inflow of Mauritanians. It occurred without a precipitating event, like a natural disaster, a coup, or an abrupt economic downturn, indicating the expanding ability of social media to alter migratory patterns: According to figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, more over 8,500 Mauritanians entered the country illegally from Mexico between March and June, up from barely 1,000 during the preceding four months.
The estimated 8,000 foreign-born Mauritanians who had previously resided in the United States, with roughly half of them in Ohio, are now likely outnumbered by the new arrivals. Many came as refugees in the 1990s after the Arab-led military government started expelling Black people.
Some of the exiles claim that they are once more escaping official violence towards Black Mauritanians. Since the death in police custody in May of a young Black man named Oumar Diop, racial tensions have risen, and the government has been actively suppressing protests and cutting off the nation’s mobile internet.
The country was one of the last to make slavery a crime, and it is widely believed that the practise still exists in some areas of the country. According to several Mauritanians who spoke with The Associated Press, police singled them out because of their work against slavery.
“Life is very difficult, especially for the Black Mauritanian population,” said Sow, 38, who identified as an activist in the nation. “The government turned oppressive and threatening.”
He claimed that it became challenging to fight and that his life was in danger. To escape, he took the new route to Cincinnati, where he had heard that a strong Mauritanian community was aiding recent immigrants in finding employment.
Before, requesting refuge in the United States required taking a flight to Brazil and then taking a risky journey across the Darien Gap’s treacherous jungle. That link is omitted from the revised route via Nicaragua.
Some families raise the $8,000 to $10,000 cost of the trip by selling their land or cattle. According to the U.N. refugee agency, Mauritania has risen into the lower echelons of middle-income countries as a result of economic progress over the previous ten years, but the poverty rate is still high with 28.2% of the population living below the poverty line.
The Nicaragua route also enables migrants to escape the perilous boat crossings to Europe, which have claimed thousands of lives over the past 10 years. Authorities in Spain and Mauritius have cracked down on boats heading to the Canary Islands from the Atlantic, and more people are being detained after hiking to North Africa to attempt to cross the Mediterranean. For Mauritanians and others looking to flee Africa, flying to Nicaragua is legal, and the remainder of the journey takes place on land.
According to Bakary Tandia, a Mauritanian activist living in New York, the new gateway offers a unique opportunity to a generation yearning for a better life: “No matter how intense your desire to immigrate is, if there is no route, you will not even consider it. The truth is that people are hurrying because they perceive a window of opportunity.
However, some Nicaraguan migrants claim they were misinformed about potential risks and the future that awaited them in the United States. 18 individuals, including one Mauritanian, were killed after a bus transporting migrants crashed down a steep hillside in Mexico this month. Hospitalised were two more Mauritanians.
Sall, a 23-year-old nurse, claimed that guys posing as police officers robbed her of the last of her money when she was on a bus in Mexico. She was admitted to the hospital with dehydration after crossing the border.
It’s not true, they claim on WhatsApp, “Oh, it’s not very difficult,” she added. We experience so much suffering along the way.
Ibrahim Dia, a 38-year-old owner of a cleaning business in Nouadhibou, Mauritanian, claimed that his brother departed the nation in June after travelling to Nicaragua, as he had seen many others do in previous months. But according to Dia, he was arrested at the border and is still being held in a Texas jail.
In Yuma, Arizona, a lot of Mauritanians enter the country. Smugglers dump some off on a highway in Mexico, where they must walk for almost two hours through a knee-deep river and flat desert vegetation and boulders. They turn themselves in to Border Patrol officers who are waiting in Yuma under stadium lights where a wall constructed under Donald Trump’s administration abruptly ends.
They may enter the nation to wait for a court date after a period of detention and screening that could last hours or days. This procedure can take years. Others are sent on a tiny number of flights that deport them back to Mauritania or held in custody for several weeks.
In light of allegations of violence against Black people who are deported after fleeing, human rights organisations have urged the Biden administration to grant Mauritania Temporary Protected Status.
Those that are accepted are frequently connected with a close-knit group of American and Mauritanian-born activists who help them find homes and cover the cost of travel throughout the United States. Others travel to cities like Philadelphia, Denver, Dallas, or New York, where an overburdened shelter system has forced migrants—many of whom are from Mauritania and other African countries—to sleep on the streets.
The most frequent location is still Ohio. Numerous thousands have arrived in Cincinnati and assimilated into the modest but thriving local community. Longtime resident Ball and a handful of volunteers assist with paperwork and localization. On some days, Ball makes several journeys to the airport to collect up individuals arriving from the border and transport them to his house or an apartment complex that is rented out by the neighbourhood.
More than a dozen Mauritanians recently carpooled to a local mosque to pray on a recent Friday evening. After the service, they gathered in another friend’s living room for dinner, which included couscous and lamb served in steaming bowls on the floor along with Coca-Cola cans. As the group talked about their pasts and futures, a women’s World Cup game was being played.
The former nurse, Sall, stated her desire to return to school. In the home she shares with other newcomers to Ohio, she has taken on an unofficial position as cook. She wishes to remain in Cincinnati and be a part of the neighbourhood that has welcomed her and many others.
She remarked, “The Mauritanian people gave me a big welcome.” And they encouraged me.
