Family of #AfroIndigenous #activist in immigration detention worries he may be deported back to danger
Story by Nicole Acevedo
6-25-2024
"#ErlinCenteno's family has feared being permanently separated since the father of three children was detained four months ago following a routine check-in with #immigration authorities in New York City.
"The lives of Centeno and his family were endangered after four of his cousins were killed and he started receiving many letters and text messages containing death threats, according to court transcripts obtained by NBC News of his testimony to an immigration judge. The threats were a result of the work he and his cousins did defending the territorial rights of Afro Indigenous communities in his homeland known as #Garifuna, according to Centeno and his wife.
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"The Garifuna people are descendants of enslaved #Africans, and also #Arawak and #Caribbean #Indigenous communities who have historically been displaced from their ancestral lands. Many of them remain in #Guatemala, #Nicaragua and #Belize — but most of them are in #Honduras, where they face high levels of violence, #racism and extreme poverty, according to the Inter-American Commission on #HumanRights (IACHR).
"#Centeno started advocating for #GarifunaRights in 2020, working with the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, one of the most prominent Garifuna nonprofits in Honduras. According to an #IACHR report, their members have long been harassed, threatened, beaten, kidnapped and killed amid land grabbing and territorial disputes involving industries with high economic interests in the region — which has intensified as local #investors have sought to #develop the area — as well as local gangs fighting over territories."
Read more:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/family-of-afro-indigenous-activist-in-immigration-detention-worries-he-may-be-deported-back-to-danger/ar-BB1oSTfE