Oumar Ball was in a rush. The eight men crammed into his 2006 Honda Odyssey needed to clock into work at a chicken-processing plant by 4 p.m. It was 3:40 p.m. and the traffic on the Ronald Reagan Highway wasn’t moving fast enough.
As Ball wove through the cars, he toggled from one call or WhatsApp message to the next. One man needed help making a down payment to a lawyer to begin his asylum paperwork. Another wanted to know how many more days before he’d get permission from the U.S. government to work.
Ever since thousands of his compatriots began arriving from Mauritania to the United States border with Mexico two years ago, they’ve been making their way to the quiet Cincinnati neighborhood of Mount Airy, where they have found refuge in Ball’s home.
Up until recently, few Mauritanians made the 10,000-mile trekfrom Africa to South America and then on to the United States. But poverty, corruption and racial tensions between the Arab-dominated government and Black Africans have compelled many to flee and apply for asylum in America, where most are allowed to remain while waiting for their cases to be heard.
Last year, at least 15,500 residents from Mauritania arrived in the United States, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data analyzed by The Washington Post. The influx represents a 2,800 percent increase compared with 2022, when just 543 arrived.
The sharp increase in migrants is part of a broader pattern of immigration that led President Biden to issue an executive order Tuesday blocking new asylum seekers once unauthorized border crossings exceed 2,500 a day.
A sizable share of Mauritanians arriving in the United States are settling in a city that has drawn little attention as migrationinto the countrysoars: Cincinnati. Mauritanians first laid down roots here in the 1990s, drawn by manufacturing jobs. In 2023, of more than 2,700 Mauritanians who settled in Ohio, a little more than half went to the “Queen City,” the data shows.
Hellbound and Down 