South Asian Americans
Leading Together

Today, SAALT grieves the loss of life in the lat­est mass shoot­ing in Indi­anapo­lis, Indi­ana: On Thurs­day, April 15th, 2021, the Indi­ana com­mu­ni­ty lost Matthew R. Alexan­der (32), Samaria Black­well (19), Amar­jeet Johal (66),  Jasvin­der Kaur (50),  Jaswinder Kaur Singh (70), Amar­jit Sekhon (49), Kar­li Smith (19), and John Weis­ert (74). Our hearts are heavy and mourn with the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, who are undoubt­ed­ly reel­ing from the trau­ma of los­ing their loved ones. Of par­tic­u­lar note, four of the eight vic­tims were our Sikh sib­lings and fel­low com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. 

Just after 11:00 PM EDT on April 15th, a now-iden­ti­fied gun­man entered an Indi­anapo­lis Fedex facil­i­ty where he was pre­vi­ous­ly employed, and opened fire, tak­ing the lives of those men­tioned above and injur­ing sev­er­al oth­ers, before tak­ing his own life. Since the inves­ti­ga­tion into the inci­dent and the gunman’s motive is ongo­ing, and we are await­ing more detailed facts, we must pri­or­i­tize those cur­rent­ly in recov­ery. Of utmost impor­tance are those left behind tend­ing to both their phys­i­cal wounds and the deep trau­ma of hav­ing to return to a work­place and com­mu­ni­ty where fel­low com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers were so trag­i­cal­ly tak­en. 

Such an act of mass vio­lence sends rever­ber­a­tions across Sikh and South Asian com­mu­ni­ties, evok­ing past pain and grief root­ed in decades of sim­i­lar vio­lent acts. Though the motive is still unclear, under­stand­ably this type of event trig­gers fear and uncer­tain­ty — much like what the com­mu­ni­ty faced after 9/11 and in the after­math of the killing of six Sikhs at a gur­d­wara in Oak Creek in 2012. SAALT stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with our Sikh com­mu­ni­ty, in Indi­anapo­lis and across the coun­try, as we move towards heal­ing.

We are struck by the trend of vio­lence against immi­grant work­ers, who have not only tak­en on essen­tial work dur­ing a glob­al pan­dem­ic, but have also been par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to its health and eco­nom­ic con­se­quences as a result of their work. SAALT stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with immi­grant and essen­tial work­ers, and hon­ors the care they have poured into our com­mu­ni­ty despite wide­spread big­otry.

We are also dis­heart­ened by the loss of both elders, who were pil­lars of strength and resilience, and of young peo­ple, who were bea­cons of hope and life. As SAALT stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with our elders and young folks, we are remind­ed of the prac­tice of char­di kala: a Sikh spir­i­tu­al prac­tice that reminds us to cen­ter com­pas­sion, opti­mism, and courage, even in times of adver­si­ty and grief. For decades, the Sikh com­mu­ni­ty has shown that resilience is pos­si­ble even as they con­tin­u­al­ly face tragedy, and our sol­i­dar­i­ty hon­ors, cen­ters, and uplifts that always; this is the thread we hope our com­mu­ni­ty can cen­ter as we con­tin­ue to process our grief. If you are look­ing to sup­port Sikh sib­lings at this time of strife, please con­sid­er direct­ing your resources to the fol­low­ing orga­ni­za­tions:
- Sikh Coali­tion
- Sikh Amer­i­can Legal Defense & Edu­ca­tion Fund (SALDEF)
- Jakara Move­ment
- Kaur Life

On the night of Tues­day, 16 March, a 21-year-old white man attacked three spas in the metro Atlanta area, shoot­ing and killing eight peo­ple. Six of the eight vic­tims were Kore­an Amer­i­can women. This attack is the worst pos­si­ble out­come of the rise in coro­n­avirus-dri­ven anti-Asian hatred – anoth­er mass shoot­ing root­ed in white suprema­cy and goad­ed by politi­cians’ xeno­pho­bic rhetoric. 

The inci­dent is a hor­rif­ic peak in the big­otry we’ve all wit­nessed over the past year: once again, mar­gin­al­ized work­ing-class immi­grants are tar­get­ed at a time of glob­al cri­sis; once again, we wit­ness our nation’s inabil­i­ty to rec­og­nize the dom­i­nance of gen­dered white suprema­cist vio­lence and racism in all of its struc­tures; once again, our heal­ing is dis­rupt­ed.

Still, local police are not cat­e­go­riz­ing this mass shoot­ing as a hate crime, nor rec­og­niz­ing the sig­nif­i­cant role of both race and gen­der in the shap­ing of this tragedy. But we must be clear: sev­en of the eight vic­tims were women; six of the eight vic­tims were Asian Amer­i­can. It is clear the shoot­er (who has cit­ed “sex­u­al deviance” as his moti­va­tion for mur­der) also had some bias in his tar­get­ing, whether explic­it or implic­it. This, in turn, demands that we – as Asian and Pacif­ic Islander Amer­i­cans, as Amer­i­cans of col­or, as Amer­i­cans gen­er­al­ly – ques­tion how embed­ded anti-Asian rhetoric is in Amer­i­can cul­ture and how Amer­i­can cul­ture ben­e­fits from patri­ar­chal white suprema­cy and era­sure. And more specif­i­cal­ly, these inter­sec­tions point to the clear his­to­ry of dan­ger­ous sex­u­al­iza­tion of Asian women in the U.S. Last night’s shoot­ing can only be under­stood and approached as an act of race‑, class‑, and gen­der-based sex­u­al vio­lence.

Con­sid­er­ing these com­plex­i­ties, it is our respon­si­bil­i­ty as mem­bers and allies of the broad­er APIA com­mu­ni­ty to push for an inter­sec­tion­al analy­sis that under­stands the racism fac­ing Asian and Pacif­ic Islander Amer­i­cans, as well as the vio­lent and sex­u­al­ized misog­y­ny aimed at our East Asian and South­east Asian sis­ters. Our role in this moment is to both remem­ber the pain of our past com­mu­ni­ty expe­ri­ences with mass vio­lence, and hon­or and move towards the point of heal­ing and repa­ra­tion.

Below are some allies who have ties to the vic­tims, their fam­i­lies, and their com­mu­ni­ties; please fol­low them to stay updat­ed on calls to action and news.
- Asian Amer­i­cans Advanc­ing Jus­tice (AAAJ) — Atlanta
- Red Canary Song
- Sur­vived & Pun­ished
- Nation­al Asian Pacif­ic Amer­i­can Wom­en’s Forum (NAPAWF)

If you’d like to direct resources and sup­port to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies as well as orga­niz­ers on the ground, please use this form (https://bit.ly/georgiaAAPIcommunitycare).

SAALT mourns the loss of our Kore­an Amer­i­can sib­lings’ lives, and in their hon­or, reaf­firms our respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect­ing oth­ers from sim­i­lar harm.

Yes­ter­day marked the intro­duc­tion of the U.S. Cit­i­zen­ship Act of 2021, by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sanchez (D‑CA-38) and Sen­a­tor Menen­dez (D‑NJ). The bill is a his­toric piece of leg­is­la­tion that pro­pos­es a path­way to cit­i­zen­ship for 11 mil­lion immi­grants, includ­ing more than 650,000 undoc­u­ment­ed South Asians. 

Among oth­er things, this bill address­es issues that are fun­da­men­tal to the well­be­ing of South Asian com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing lan­guage that:

• Creates an earned roadmap to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants, pro­vid­ing  Dream­ers, TPS hold­ers, and some farm­work­ers with an expe­dit­ed three-year path to cit­i­zen­ship, and giv­ing all oth­er undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants an eight-year path.
• Reforms the family-based immigration system to keep families together by recap­tur­ing visas from pre­vi­ous years to clear back­logs, includ­ing spous­es and chil­dren of green card hold­ers as imme­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers, and increas­ing per-coun­try caps for fam­i­ly-based immi­gra­tion. It also elim­i­nates dis­crim­i­na­tion against LGBTQ+ fam­i­lies, pro­vide pro­tec­tions for orphans, wid­ows and chil­dren, and allows immi­grants with approved fam­i­ly-spon­sor­ship peti­tions to join fam­i­ly in the U.S. on a tem­po­rary basis while they wait for green cards.
• Updates the employment-based immigration system, elim­i­nat­ing per-coun­try caps, improv­ing access to green cards for work­ers in low­er-wage indus­tries, giv­ing depen­dents of H‑1B hold­ers work autho­riza­tion, and pre­vent­ing chil­dren of H‑1B hold­ers from aging out of the sys­tem. The bill also cre­ates a pilot pro­gram to stim­u­late region­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, and incen­tivizes high­er wages for non-immi­grant, high-skilled visas to pre­vent unfair com­pe­ti­tion with Amer­i­can work­ers. 
• Supports asylum seekers and other vulnerable populations by elim­i­nat­ing the one-year dead­line for fil­ing asy­lum claims, reduc­ing asy­lum appli­ca­tion back­logs, increas­ing pro­tec­tions for U visa, T visa, and VAWA appli­cants, includ­ing by rais­ing the cap on U visas from 10,000 to 30,000.

We look for­ward to the pos­si­bil­i­ties this leg­is­la­tion presents. How­ev­er, we also urge Con­gress to address some of its harm­ful pro­vi­sions that exclude immi­grants who have been harmed by the racist crim­i­nal legal sys­tem, and hin­der immi­grants from access­ing health care and oth­er vital ser­vices on their path to cit­i­zen­ship. 

Pres­i­dent Biden and his admin­is­tra­tion must not only fol­low through with the above com­mit­ments but also trans­form the immi­gra­tion sys­tem to explic­it­ly account for cli­mate change, reli­gious per­se­cu­tion, and grow­ing right-wing fas­cism in South Asia. 

Amid mass depor­ta­tions of Black immi­grants, the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, and ongo­ing inte­ri­or enforce­ment threats, SAALT will con­tin­ue to advo­cate to strength­en the bill and ensure that all immi­grants and their fam­i­lies have access to a humane immi­gra­tion sys­tem. A thought­ful immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy lifts us all. 

On Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 26, the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty with­drew its pro­pos­al to rescind H‑4 work autho­riza­tions (EADs). This means that more than 100,000 H‑4 EAD recip­i­ents, the major­i­ty of whom are women of col­or, keep their abil­i­ty to work. This move to pre­serve the pro­gram sig­nals the Biden-Har­ris administration’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing immi­grant women work­ers who play an essen­tial role as we con­tin­ue to bat­tle the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Despite this hope­ful news, SAALT con­tin­ues to hear from com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who have been adverse­ly impact­ed by sig­nif­i­cant delays in the pro­cess­ing of H‑4 work autho­riza­tion doc­u­ments. These peo­ple must be pro­tect­ed, and the Biden admin­is­tra­tion must uni­lat­er­al­ly extend the valid­i­ty peri­od of all expired H‑4 EADs and resolve USCIS pro­cess­ing delays.

Hope­ful­ly, we will see these exten­sions come with the intro­duc­tion of the Cit­i­zen­ship Act of 2021 in the com­ing weeks. It seeks to for­mal­ize work autho­riza­tion for H‑4 EAD visa recip­i­ents, cre­ate an acces­si­ble and equi­table path­way to cit­i­zen­ship (espe­cial­ly for undoc­u­ment­ed essen­tial work­ers), and com­mit to a struc­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion of our bro­ken immi­gra­tion sys­tem that address­es and resolves back­logs. Pres­i­dent Biden and Con­gress must work togeth­er to pass clean immi­gra­tion and essen­tial work­er bills. 

Learn more about the cur­rent sta­tus of the H‑4 EAD rule, and take action: 

• Watch this video tes­ti­mo­ni­al from com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber and ally, Neha.
• Read Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bon­nie Wat­son Coleman’s let­ter urg­ing the imme­di­ate exten­sion of H‑4 EAD expi­ra­tion dates.
• Share your own expe­ri­ences with H‑4 EAD process­es by post­ing on social media with the hash­tag #ProtectH4EAD.

This is a long over­due moment of hope for immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy; let’s make it count and #ProtectH4EAD.

Since Jan­u­ary 27th, 2017, count­less fam­i­lies have been sep­a­rat­ed, detained, and refused fair treat­ment under the Mus­lim Ban – but as of yes­ter­day, hope and jus­tice feel near­er, as Pres­i­dent Biden has signed an exec­u­tive order to end the Ban, repeal­ing an explic­it­ly racist immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy and stand­ing with Arab, Black, and Mus­lim Amer­i­cans.

SAALT spent the last four years as a part of the No Mus­lim Ban Ever cam­paign, mobi­liz­ing com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers and elect­ed offi­cials to stand against the Ban, and stand up for our com­mu­ni­ty. Yesterday’s vic­to­ry is the fruit of our col­lec­tive resis­tance to white suprema­cy, and our con­tin­ued defense of (im)migrant rights.

With the rescis­sion of the anti-Black, xeno­pho­bic, and Islam­o­pho­bic pol­i­cy, SAALT and our allies now have a clear­er path to fight for the pro­tec­tion of all migrants and immi­grants, regard­less of their back­ground. Still, of course, the Mus­lim Ban is just one cog in a high­ly flawed immi­gra­tion sys­tem, which must be trans­formed in its entire­ty; the enact­ment of the Mus­lim Ban only high­light­ed the entrench­ment of Islam­o­pho­bia and xeno­pho­bia in Amer­i­can cul­ture. Therefore, it is critical that the 118th Congress pass and enact the No Ban Act to limit executive authority from issuing future discriminatory bans based on religion and national origin.

It’s equal­ly cru­cial for our com­mu­ni­ty to rec­og­nize that Pres­i­dent Biden’s rescis­sion of the Ban only marks the begin­ning of an ardu­ous heal­ing process – a chal­lenge which we must come togeth­er to address. This is why SAALT is pri­or­i­tiz­ing and prac­tic­ing restora­tive jus­tice strate­gies in our con­tin­ued fight against insti­tu­tion­al­ized Islam­o­pho­bia and xeno­pho­bia. Our col­lec­tive abil­i­ty to hold space for heal­ing will deter­mine the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our move­ment, and we ask our com­mu­ni­ty to rec­og­nize the harms that these dis­crim­i­na­to­ry poli­cies have on the men­tal and phys­i­cal well-being of impact­ed com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers for gen­er­a­tions to come.

As hope and jus­tice draw near­er, we call on Pres­i­dent Biden and his admin­is­tra­tion to con­tin­ue show­ing sup­port for Black, Indige­nous and all oth­er com­mu­ni­ties of col­or, and con­tin­ue to con­demn and act against white suprema­cy and hatred.

Please reach out to sruti@saalt.org with any ques­tions or requests.