Liberia

woman

The Liberian women who took on their traffickers and won

Liberia has been on and off the State Department’s human trafficking watch list for years. In this desperately poor country, people accept jobs from agents to work as domestic servants in other countries. Usually, they are trapped, earning little money and subject to abuse. But several hundred Liberian women used social media to escape their traffickers in 2022.

Liberian school children in the courtyard at Cathedral High School as students arrive in the morning to attend class in Monrovia, Liberia, Monday, Feb. 16, 2015. 

How we make decisions about politics in the aftermath of conflict

Critical State
Haitian President Jovenel Moise arrives for an interview at his home in Petion-Ville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Haitian President Jovenel Moïse assassinated in overnight attack

Top of The World
A woman stands in silhouette against a blue sky.

Liberians hesitate to apply for permanent resident status in US over daunting process

Immigration
Moroccan UN peacekeepers wearing blue helmets patrol a rich soil road Bangassou, Central African Republic, Feb. 14, 2021. 

Externalities of intervention: Part I

Critical State
A woman speaks at a podium representing Black Immigrant Collective.

‘It’s hard to have hope when you haven’t had time to breathe,’ says Liberian American activist on Chauvin verdict

Conflict & Justice

Alfreda Daniels Juasemai, a community organizer and co-founder of Black Immigrant Collective in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, says the Chauvin verdict doesn’t offer much hope.

African American Mayor Mike Elliott poses in a dark gray suit

Brooklyn Center mayor on Chauvin trial: Black people can no longer tolerate ‘a state of terror’

Justice

Mayor Mike Elliott talks to Marco Werman about how his childhood in Liberia prepared him for this leadership moment — as his city grapples with the killing of Daunte Wright, and braces for the verdict in the case of George Floyd’s death.

Joe Biden, a white man, is stands near nominee Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a Black woman, who is wearing a dark blue suit onstage at a podium.

Biden pick to lead US mission at UN will ‘rebuild ties with our closest allies,’ says former amb.

Global Politics

With over three decades in the US foreign service, Linda Thomas-Greenfield hopes to chart a new course for the US in the halls of the United Nations. Marco Werman speaks to her colleague, former Ambassador Johnnie Carson, about how the adversity that Thomas-Greenfield faced in her career has prepared her for this role.

A woman prays during a service

‘It doesn’t feel very real’: Liberian immigrants in US rejoice at pathway to citizenship

Justice

A pathway to green cards and US citizenship is within reach for an estimated 4,000 Liberians thanks to a provision buried within the behemoth $738 billion defense policy bill passed by the US Senate on Tuesday. 

A group of people holding signs gather in front of a courthouse building

Legal status for thousands of Liberians in US hangs on court decision

Immigration

Some 4,000 Liberians will lose their legal status due to the Trump administration’s termination of a program that granted them temporary reprieves from deportation. This week, they got their day in court.