South Asian Americans
Leading Together

Yes­ter­day, in response to the Supreme Court uphold­ing the Deferred Action for Child­hood Arrivals (DACA) pro­gram last month, the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion took expect­ed steps to dis­man­tle the pro­gram, releas­ing a memo that said it would not be accept­ing new DACA appli­ca­tions, reject­ing most advance parole requests, and lim­it­ing those with pend­ing renewals  to only one year instead of two years. 

For the over 5,000 South Asian DACA recip­i­ents, and the over 20,000 Indi­ans alone who remain eli­gi­ble for DACA, this will have a direct impact on any exist­ing renew­al appli­ca­tions and for any undoc­u­ment­ed South Asian youth who were hop­ing to apply for DACA.

We knew the Supreme Court vic­to­ry was tem­po­rary, allow­ing the Admin­is­tra­tion to retal­i­ate. We must con­tin­ue push­ing back, forg­ing ahead, and ensur­ing that we fight for poli­cies that sup­port all immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties with­out harm­ing oth­ers.

Here are things you can do right now:

• Join a com­mu­ni­ty call today at 8pmET to dis­cuss what this means 
• Con­tribute to the DACA Renew­al fund and to move­ment orga­ni­za­tions who are fight­ing this every step of the way.
• Email your Sen­a­tor by click­ing this link here and demand­ing they sup­port the Dream and Promise Act which would ensure per­ma­nent pro­tec­tions for undoc­u­ment­ed peo­ple and com­mit to STOP fund­ing this Administration’s  Depor­ta­tion Force
• Post on your socials using the TRUMP ENDS DACA TOOLKIT | #HomeIsHere
• Change your Face­book and Twit­ter pro­file pics to add the #Home­IsHere fil­ter

More than 700,000 young people can continue to live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation.

Wash­ing­ton, D.C.:  The Supreme Court of the Unit­ed States’ ruled (5–4) to tem­porar­i­ly pro­tect Deferred Action for Child­hood Arrivals (DACA), cit­ing it had the author­i­ty to review the Trump Administration’s deci­sion to ter­mi­nate DACA, and deter­mined that the Admin­is­tra­tion end­ed the pro­gram ille­gal­ly. This major vic­to­ry is tem­po­rary because it still gives the Admin­is­tra­tion an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ter­mi­nate the pro­gram again on legal grounds.

But, today’s deci­sion means that hun­dreds of thou­sands of young peo­ple, includ­ing over 4,000 South Asian DACA recip­i­ents, can con­tin­ue to live, work, and study in the U.S. with­out fear of depor­ta­tion. And until the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion responds, peo­ple can con­tin­ue to renew appli­ca­tions for DACA and will soon be able to sub­mit new appli­ca­tions. 

“Although it is con­di­tion­al, today’s vic­to­ry is wel­come at a time when the war on Black com­mu­ni­ties feels end­less. It is a reminder that our work is not done, but togeth­er we can win. We have to keep demand­ing solu­tions that ben­e­fit us all — includ­ing push­ing for a per­ma­nent, leg­isla­tive solu­tion that ensures a path to cit­i­zen­ship for all immi­grants, defunds ICE, CBP, and the police and invests in com­mu­ni­ties, which are pil­lars of the Move­ment for Black Lives pol­i­cy agen­da, ” said Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, SAALT’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. 

SAALT joins immi­grant jus­tice groups across the coun­try in advo­cat­ing that Mem­bers of Con­gress pass a per­ma­nent solu­tion that helps rather than harms immi­grants and com­mu­ni­ties of col­or. More than 200,000 DACA essen­tial work­ers — includ­ing 41,700 health care work­ers — are on the front­lines of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. At the bare min­i­mum, any new leg­is­la­tion, includ­ing COVID-19 relat­ed stim­u­lus pack­ages, should include reprieve from depor­ta­tion and exten­sions of DACA and TPS work per­mits and pro­tec­tion. SAALT is also push­ing for state and local lead­ers to pro­vide free COVID-19 test­ing and treat­ment for all, regard­less of immi­gra­tion sta­tus.

Please con­tact Sophia Qureshi at sophia@saalt.org for media requests.

Sep­tem­ber 10, 2019

SAALT is deeply con­cerned by the actions of the Naren­dra Modi gov­ern­ment of India and the impact of its Hin­du nation­al­ist agen­da on not only com­mu­ni­ties liv­ing in the region but also South Asian Amer­i­cans liv­ing in the U.S.  

Reli­gious minori­ties and vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions in the region have faced high lev­els of dis­crim­i­na­tion and exclu­sion in India, par­tic­u­lar­ly after Mod­i’s recent re-elec­tion.  In Kash­mir, res­i­dents are liv­ing under a 37 day com­mu­ni­ca­tions block­ade and being stripped of both their polit­i­cal rights and human rights;  in Assam, the gov­ern­ment has imple­ment­ed a cit­i­zen­ship doc­u­men­ta­tion sys­tem that delib­er­ate­ly excludes near­ly 1.9 mil­lion peo­ple, most­ly Mus­lims;  and across the coun­try there has been a surge in the num­ber of lynch­ings of minori­ties, most­ly Mus­lims, Dal­its and Chris­tians, under Modi’s lead­er­ship. 

The Modi gov­ern­ment is imple­ment­ing a Hin­du nation­al­ist agen­da, known as Hin­dut­va, a polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy that is diver­gent from the plu­ral­is­tic prac­tices and beliefs of Hin­duism itself.  Hin­dut­va, or right wing Hin­du nation­al­ism, is root­ed in the alarm­ing notion that Hin­dus are racial­ly and cul­tur­al­ly supe­ri­or to oth­ers. Sim­i­lar to white suprema­cy, which South Asians (includ­ing Hin­dus) in the Unit­ed States con­tend reg­u­lar­ly with, Hin­dut­va threat­ens the rights, bod­ies, free­doms, and liveli­hoods of non-Hin­dus in India.    

The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in India, fueled by nation­al­ism and Hin­dut­va, has glob­al impli­ca­tions. For exam­ple, over the past five years there has been a dra­mat­ic increase in the num­ber of Indi­an nation­als seek­ing asy­lum in the U.S.  Peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum from per­se­cu­tion range from Sikh polit­i­cal activists to LGBT activists to those fac­ing caste oppres­sion. They flee to the U.S. seek­ing refuge from per­se­cu­tion in India, but often face bru­tal con­di­tions upon arrival to the U.S. SAALT works to sup­port asy­lum seek­ers who are caught in a cru­el deten­tion sys­tem. 

South Asians in the Unit­ed States have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to speak up and take action, espe­cial­ly now giv­en the dire sit­u­a­tion in Kash­mir and the upcom­ing trip by Prime Min­is­ter Modi to the Unit­ed States. We urge South Asians to raise aware­ness about the impli­ca­tions and impact of Hin­dut­va, and to lend your voic­es to the cho­rus of peo­ple rais­ing con­cerns. We urge South Asian Amer­i­cans to under­stand the con­nec­tions between white suprema­cy and Hin­dut­va, to unite around human rights, to sup­port poli­cies that uphold dig­ni­ty and inclu­sion for all, and to denounce hate vio­lence in all its forms.  

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Wash­ing­ton, D.C.: As the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion inten­tion­al­ly fails to address a nation­al health cri­sis that has already claimed the lives of over 120,000 peo­ple in the U.S., they con­tin­ue to dou­ble down on crim­i­nal­iz­ing immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties while still exploit­ing their labor to car­ry us through the pan­dem­ic. This week’s exec­u­tive order extend­ed the 60 day ban on the issuance of green cards announced in April and fur­ther expands the ban to H‑1B, H‑2B, L, and cer­tain J non-immi­grant visas through the end of the year. This pri­mar­i­ly tar­gets high-skilled and guest work­ers, under­min­ing fam­i­ly reuni­fi­ca­tion and diver­si­ty visa pro­grams. 

SAALT’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran said,“Over 70 per­cent of H1B visa hold­ers in the U.S. are from South Asian coun­tries. Our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and their fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to be jeop­ar­dized because of these restric­tions. If the goal was to pro­tect U.S. work­ers, they would be giv­en PPE, sick days, and health­care in the midst of this dead­ly pan­dem­ic. From the Mus­lim Ban to tar­get­ing a range of immi­grant pop­u­la­tions from H‑1B visa­hold­ers to DACA recip­i­ents, this admin­is­tra­tion’s racist and anti-immi­grant agen­da under­scores their abysmal fail­ure in lead­er­ship.”

For more infor­ma­tion on who will be impact­ed by this lat­est exec­u­tive order, check out this fact sheet from the Cen­ter for Immi­grant Rights Clin­ic at Penn State Law.

Con­tact: sophia@saalt.org

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UPDATE, July 10th

Ear­li­er this week, we put out a call for vol­un­teers to assist with an out­reach effort to pro­vide food and restau­rant work­ers from the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty with “know your rights” resources. The alert was prompt­ed by com­mu­ni­ty reports about an immi­gra­tion enforce­ment action tar­get­ing work­ers in the restau­rant indus­try over the past week in DC. Out of respect for those direct­ly affect­ed, we are not pro­vid­ing any addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion at this time. We will con­tin­ue our work to pro­tect and defend our com­mu­ni­ties, espe­cial­ly at a time when immi­grants are being tar­get­ed, whether at work­places and homes or at the bor­der.

July 8, 2019

An Indi­an restau­rant in DC was raid­ed by ICE last week. Sev­er­al Hin­di speak­ing employ­ees were tak­en to the Mont­gomery Coun­ty jail in Mary­land. 

Giv­en the prospect of immi­gra­tion raids in the DC area, we are call­ing for vol­un­teers to join us for an out­reach effort on July 13th and 14th.

SAALT is seek­ing vol­un­teers to help with out­reach, trans­la­tion, and legal coun­sel. Click here for imme­di­ate steps you can take.

SAALT’s 2018 report doc­u­ments hate vio­lence and xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric aimed at our com­mu­ni­ties from Elec­tion Day 2016 to Elec­tion Day 2017. SAALT doc­u­ment­ed 302 inci­dents of hate vio­lence and xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric aimed at South Asian, Mus­lim, Sikh, Hin­du, Mid­dle East­ern, and Arab com­mu­ni­ties in the Unit­ed States, of which an astound­ing 82% were moti­vat­ed by anti-Mus­lim sen­ti­ment. The 302 inci­dents are a more than 45% increase from the year lead­ing up to the 2016 elec­tion cycle, lev­els not seen since the year after Sep­tem­ber 11.