Author Archives: SAALT

Trump Administration is Dismantling DACA — Here’s What You Can Do About It:

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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:

SAALT condemns Trump Administration’s latest expansion of immigration restrictions

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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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SAALT welcomes Supreme Court’s decision to protect DACA

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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.

SAALT Demands Justice for George Floyd, Calls for Murder Charges

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On Mon­day, May 25th, four police offi­cers, includ­ing Offi­cer Derek Chau­vin and Offi­cer Tou Thao, mur­dered 46-year old George Floyd, in his home city of Min­neapo­lis, Min­neso­ta. George Floyd is the most recent vic­tim of state-sanc­tioned police bru­tal­i­ty aimed at Black peo­ple, mark­ing the 1,014th mur­der by U.S. police in the past year. 

Despite being in the midst of a pan­dem­ic that has left near­ly 100,000 peo­ple dead, the vio­lence tar­get­ing Black com­mu­ni­ties has con­tin­ued unabat­ed. Just three months ago, Bre­on­na Tay­lor, a Black woman, was killed by police offi­cers in her home in Louisville after they sur­veiled and assault­ed her. And, just weeks ago, the nation woke up to bystander doc­u­men­ta­tion of Ahmaud Arbery’s Feb­ru­ary mur­der at the hands of a white for­mer police offi­cer in Geor­gia. The inher­ent racism of the polic­ing sys­tem con­tin­ues to be exploit­ed by indi­vid­u­als to tar­get peo­ple of col­or, as doc­u­ment­ed this past Mon­day, when a white woman threat­ened a Black man in Cen­tral Park by say­ing she would call the police “and tell them there’s an African-Amer­i­can man threat­en­ing [her] life” when he calm­ly asked her to leash her dog accord­ing to the park’s rules.

“As South Asians and Asian Amer­i­cans, we must acknowl­edge, con­front, and dis­man­tle anti-Black­ness in our own com­mu­ni­ties,” said SAALT’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran. “Our com­mu­ni­ties often rely on the racist crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem to address hate vio­lence aimed at our own com­mu­ni­ties while the root cause of this vio­lence is the gov­ern­ment and its poli­cies. And, like the afore­men­tioned Asian Amer­i­can Min­neapo­lis Offi­cer Tou Thao, we also have the pow­er to enact anti-Black­ness by trust­ing and rein­forc­ing the vio­lence of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Dur­ing this time of cri­sis, as we see a rise in anti-Asian vio­lence in response to COVID-19, we must inter­ro­gate our reliance and belief in polic­ing and police, and con­front the anti-Black­ness that plagues our com­mu­ni­ties. SAALT is rein­vig­o­rat­ing its com­mit­ment to com­bat­ing anti-Black­ness with­in and across our com­mu­ni­ties by work­ing with exist­ing and new allies in Black and Brown com­mu­ni­ties.”

It is dur­ing times of cri­sis that racist sys­tems of polic­ing, enforce­ment, mon­i­tor­ing, and sur­veil­lance are for­ti­fied. Yet, there is hope for recourse and jus­tice and a world where police offi­cers are held account­able for mur­der. We’re urg­ing com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to sign this Col­or of Change peti­tion, demand­ing that the four police offi­cers who killed George Floyd be charged with mur­der and to join Com­mu­ni­ty Resource Hub’s COVID-19 Polic­ing Track­er, to help track COVID-19 relat­ed sur­veil­lance.

SAALT calls on Biden campaign to condemn Islamophobia and Hindu Nationalist violence

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Recent­ly, legit­i­mate con­cerns have arisen about Amit Jani, the AAPI Out­reach Coor­di­na­tor on Joe Biden’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, regard­ing his con­nec­tions to the BJP and sup­port of the Modi Admin­is­tra­tion, which has unleashed vio­lence aimed at Mus­lims, Dal­its, and oth­er minor­i­ty pop­u­la­tions. Amit Jani was a par­tic­i­pant in SAALT’s Young Lead­ers Insti­tute (YLI) in 2012. We hope that our alum­ni will always take a stand against hate vio­lence tar­get­ing South Asian com­mu­ni­ties in the U.S. and glob­al­ly. 

As a non-par­ti­san orga­ni­za­tion (c3), SAALT is pro­hib­it­ed from tak­ing posi­tions about peo­ple who are either run­ning for elect­ed office and/or con­nect­ed to polit­i­cal cam­paigns. Nev­er­the­less, we are allowed to ask a cam­paign to share its posi­tions on issues of con­cern to our com­mu­ni­ties. Our com­mu­ni­ties have been per­son­al­ly and direct­ly impact­ed by the ris­ing tide of state sanc­tioned anti-Mus­lim vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion in India and Kash­mir as well as in the U.S. We ask the Biden cam­paign to con­demn Islam­o­pho­bia and Hin­du nation­al­ist vio­lence across the world and acknowl­edge the impact it has on South Asian com­mu­ni­ties every­where. 

As an orga­ni­za­tion root­ed in val­ues of dig­ni­ty and inclu­sion, we believe that South Asians hold­ing posi­tions of polit­i­cal influ­ence must be respon­sive to the most crit­i­cal issues in our com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing Hin­du nation­al­ism and Islam­o­pho­bia. When it comes to hate vio­lence and dis­crim­i­na­tion, neu­tral­i­ty is not an option.

South Asian American Organizations Condemn Violence in Delhi

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As mem­bers of South Asian orga­ni­za­tions in the U.S. that believe in the val­ues of dig­ni­ty, jus­tice and inclu­sion for all, we are hor­ri­fied by the vio­lence tar­get­ing Indi­an Mus­lims in Del­hi this week.  Since Sun­day, at least 40 peo­ple have been killed and hun­dreds more injured. We are struck by the heart wrench­ing footage of Mus­lims flee­ing their homes, stores and homes burnt to ash­es, the des­e­cra­tion of mosques and vio­lent attacks by mobs on Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties.

What is most alarm­ing is the role of the police in incit­ing the vio­lence and the speech of a local politi­cian from the Hin­du nation­al­ist BJP par­ty warn­ing pro­tes­tors of the bru­tal­i­ty  that would be unleashed on them if they failed to clear the streets before Trump’s vis­it. This is state sanc­tioned vio­lence, as chief offi­cers of the Del­hi police stood behind him in sol­i­dar­i­ty.

 As mem­bers of the Dias­po­ra we can­not be silent.

These events are hor­ri­fy­ing. And dis­turbing­ly, they are not entire­ly unex­pect­ed.  They come after a series of exclu­sion­ary and unjust actions tar­get­ing reli­gious and caste minori­ties and vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the re-elec­tion of Modi. 

There have been wide scale protests through­out India since the gov­ern­ment passed the inher­ent­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry Cit­i­zen­ship Amend­ment Act, which active­ly cre­ates an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, reli­gion-based cri­te­ria to grant cit­i­zen­ship to select immi­grants and lays the legal foun­da­tion to denat­u­ral­ize mil­lions of Indi­an minori­ties, effec­tive­ly cre­at­ing the largest net­work of con­cen­tra­tion camps in the world. The CAA, in con­junc­tion with the Nation­al Reg­is­tra­tion of Cit­i­zens (NRC) list, effec­tive­ly ren­ders India’s 200 mil­lion Mus­lims state­less. 

In Kash­mir, Indi­a’s ongo­ing mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion has inten­si­fied since August 5th, when com­mu­ni­ca­tions were cut and the region was placed under an intense crack­down. The Indi­an state has effec­tive­ly silenced Kash­miris and detained thou­sands of peo­ple includ­ing minors and many Kash­miris fear a set­tler-colo­nial project that would change the demo­graph­ics of the region from a Mus­lim-major­i­ty state to a Hin­du-major­i­ty state.

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, or right wing Hin­du nation­al­ism, which 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. 

These suprema­cist ide­olo­gies implic­it­ly and explic­it­ly sanc­tion hate — and put our com­mu­ni­ties in dan­ger- both in the U.S. and in the sub­con­ti­nent.  SAALT has doc­u­ment­ed more than 542 inci­dents of hate vio­lence in the U.S. tar­get­ing Mus­lims and those racial­ized as Mus­lim since Novem­ber 2015. 

The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in India, fueled by nation­al­ism and Hin­dut­va, has glob­al impli­ca­tions. 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 reli­gious minori­ties to those fac­ing caste oppres­sion. The anti-Mus­lim mea­sures in India are a part of a tide of ris­ing Islam­o­pho­bia, and comes as the Trump Admin­is­ra­tion just expand­ed its own Mus­lim Ban.

As South Asian orga­ni­za­tions work­ing toward build­ing pow­er and capac­i­ty with our com­mu­ni­ties, we urge all 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.  

We urge South Asians to: ask their Mem­bers of Con­gress to join Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Bey­er, Raskin, Omar, Cas­tro, Tlaib, and Jaya­pal; and Sen­a­tors Sanders and War­ren in con­demn­ing the vio­lence tar­get­ing Indi­an Mus­lims, caste oppressed com­mu­ni­ties and Kash­miris (includ­ing co-spon­sor­ing House Res­o­lu­tion 745); to edu­cate them­selves and their own com­mu­ni­ties about the impli­ca­tions and impacts of Hin­dut­va; and show up to the protests at Indi­an con­sulates on Feb­ru­ary 28th and orga­nize their per­son­al net­works, tem­ples, and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions to defund hate and stop sup­port­ing the BJP and RSS now. The time to stop geno­cide is now. 

Signed,

South Asian Amer­i­cans Lead­ing Togeth­er (SAALT)

Indi­an Amer­i­can Mus­lim Coun­cil (IAMC)

Equal­i­ty Labs 

Stand with Kash­mir

Hin­dus for Human Rights (HfHR)

Sad­hana: Coali­tion of Pro­gres­sive Hin­dus 

DesiQ Dias­po­ra (DQD)

Sakhi for South Asian Women

South Asia Sol­i­dar­i­ty Ini­tia­tive

Stu­dents Against Hin­dut­va (SAH)

Atlanta Kash­miri Com­mu­ni­ty

Alliance of South Asians Tak­ing Action

Burmese Rohingya Com­mu­ni­ty of Geor­gia 

The Sikh Coali­tion 

Coun­cil Of Peo­ples Orga­ni­za­tion 

API Chaya

Desis Ris­ing Up and Mov­ing (DRUM)

South Asians Build­ing Account­abil­i­ty & Heal­ing (SABAH)

India Home

Sikh Amer­i­can Legal Defense and Edu­ca­tion Fund (SALDEF)

Chhaya CDC

Coali­tion of Seat­tle Indi­an-Amer­i­cans (CSIA)

South Asian Work­ers’ Cen­ter — Boston

Nation­al Queer Asian Pacif­ic Islander Alliance (NQAPIA)

Jakara Move­ment

Adhikaar

South Asian Youth in Hous­ton Unite (SAYHU)

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SAALT welcomes new Executive Director and Board Chair

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The SAALT Board is extreme­ly hap­py to mark the begin­ning of the new year, the new decade, and this next era for SAALT with excit­ing news:

We are thrilled to wel­come Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran as SAALT’s new Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Sim­ran Noor as SAALT’s new Board Chair.

Lak­sh­mi played a cru­cial role as SAALT’s Inter­im Exec­u­tive Direc­tor in the past year, man­ag­ing the organization’s oper­a­tions and infra­struc­ture while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly lead­ing on pol­i­cy and cam­paigns.

Lakshmi’s strong com­mit­ment to SAALT’s mis­sion and specif­i­cal­ly to build­ing move­ments for jus­tice across com­mu­ni­ties of col­or was deep­ened while serv­ing as Direc­tor of Nation­al Pol­i­cy and Advo­ca­cy at SAALT for over 4 years. She devel­oped SAALT’s pol­i­cy and leg­isla­tive agen­da focused on immi­gra­tion, racial pro­fil­ing, and com­bat­ing hate vio­lence. Dur­ing this time, she expand­ed the scope of SAALT’s coali­tion part­ners at the local and nation­al lev­els, includ­ing facil­i­tat­ing more influ­ence for South Asian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties on Capi­tol Hill.

Before join­ing SAALT, Lak­sh­mi served as the Pol­i­cy Direc­tor for The Prax­is Project, a nation­al orga­ni­za­tion focused on health jus­tice in com­mu­ni­ties of col­or. Pri­or to that, Lak­sh­mi spent six years in New Orleans work­ing with direct­ly impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties on recov­ery and eco­nom­ic jus­tice issues imme­di­ate­ly after Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na. She comes to the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor role at SAALT with 15 years of expe­ri­ence work­ing in non­prof­its and holds a Mas­ters degree in City Plan­ning from Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy and a B.A. in Eth­nic Stud­ies from The Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley.

Sim­ran has over a decade of expe­ri­ence work­ing in the pub­lic pol­i­cy and non­prof­it worlds to advance racial, social and eco­nom­ic jus­tice. She cur­rent­ly runs her own strat­e­gy firm and works with orga­ni­za­tions to insti­tute process­es and pro­grams to achieve racial equi­ty. She’s a past Race For­ward fel­low and served as Vice Pres­i­dent for Pol­i­cy and Pro­grams for the Cen­ter for Social Inclu­sion. Sim­ran holds a dual bachelor’s degree in Amer­i­can Stud­ies and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land, Bal­ti­more Coun­ty and a dual mas­ters degree in Pub­lic Admin­is­tra­tion and Social Pol­i­cy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. Sim­ran has served on the SAALT Board since 2017 and her var­ied exper­tise in phil­an­thropy, move­ment build­ing, and orga­ni­za­tion­al devel­op­ment make her ide­al­ly sit­u­at­ed to move to the posi­tion of SAALT’s Board Chair.

“I could­n’t be more excit­ed to sup­port Lak­sh­mi and SAALT in the com­ing years. We look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to posi­tion SAALT to be a nation­al leader in vis­i­bi­liz­ing the issues faced by South Asian com­mu­ni­ties and work­ing with awe­some local and nation­al part­ners to cre­ate more pow­er and jus­tice,” said Sim­ran.

2020 also marks SAALT’s 20 year anniver­sary. Since SAALT’s incep­tion, the threats and chal­lenges our com­mu­ni­ties face have diver­si­fied, but the need to stand strong, unit­ed, and orga­nized against injus­tice as a com­mu­ni­ty remains just as urgent.

“I am grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead SAALT after being ground­ed in our com­mu­ni­ties and the issues we con­front over the last five years. I look for­ward to help­ing strength­en our move­ment and shift nar­ra­tives with­in and about South Asian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties,” said Lak­sh­mi.

We are eager to have Lak­sh­mi and Sim­ran pro­vide the lead­er­ship this moment calls for as we ush­er in this new era and we will count on your sup­port to con­tin­ue to build com­mu­ni­ty pow­er at this cru­cial time.

Please join us in wel­com­ing Lak­sh­mi and Sim­ran by tweet­ing wel­come mes­sages to them at @SAALTweets, @lsridaran  and @SimranNoo.

Con­tact: Sophia@saalt.org

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Administration Acts on Threat to Expand Muslim Ban

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jan­u­ary 31, 2020

Ear­li­er today, just days after the third anniver­sary of the Mus­lim Ban, the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion struck again by adding six more coun­tries to this racist pol­i­cy. Nation­als of Myan­mar, Nige­ria, Kyr­gyzs­tan and Eritrea will be banned from seek­ing immi­grant visas and nation­als of Sudan and Tan­za­nia will be banned from the diver­si­ty visa lot­tery. While it is expect­ed that Nige­ri­ans will be most impact­ed in num­ber, it is also painful to see that Mus­lim refugees flee­ing geno­cide in Myan­mar will be turned away by our nation just as Jew­ish refugees were decades ago dur­ing the Holo­caust.

“One thing is clear, the Mus­lim Ban was this administration’s first fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion pol­i­cy just days after the pres­i­den­tial inau­gu­ra­tion in 2017, and it has served as the foun­da­tion­al pol­i­cy for tar­get­ing com­mu­ni­ties of col­or ever since. Since then, we have seen attacks on DACA, TPS, diver­si­ty lot­tery, green cards, pub­lic ben­e­fits, refugees, asy­lum seek­ers, preg­nant women, and more to insti­tu­tion­al­ize a white suprema­cist agen­da,” said Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, SAALT’s Inter­im Exec­u­tive Direc­tor.

Since Jan­u­ary of 2017, SAALT has doc­u­ment­ed an uptick in white suprema­cist hate vio­lence aimed at Mus­lims and those racial­ized as Mus­lim, includ­ing 350 inci­dents of hate and 200 instances of xeno­pho­bic or Islam­o­pho­bic rhetoric from media out­lets and elect­ed offi­cials. SAALT’s 2018 report “Com­mu­ni­ties on Fire” found that Mus­lim women wear­ing hijab and indi­vid­u­als with dark­er skin col­or were more fre­quent­ly the tar­gets of the most vio­lent acts of hate. This runs par­al­lel to today’s expan­sion of the Mus­lim Ban tar­get­ing Mus­lim major­i­ty African nations.

Con­gress has the pow­er to end all of this by pass­ing the NO BAN Act. This leg­is­la­tion would imme­di­ate­ly rescind the Mus­lim Ban and lim­it the exec­u­tive branch’s author­i­ty to exer­cise such wide and unchecked dis­cre­tion in issu­ing racist poli­cies. Today’s expan­sion of the Mus­lim Ban under­scores the need to pass a clean NO BAN Act with zero excep­tions because even the small­est open­ing can unleash such wide­spread destruc­tion.

Con­tact: sophia@saalt.org
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On Third Anniversary of Muslim Ban, Asian American Organizations Say Pass NO BAN Act

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Wash­ing­ton, DC – Three years ago today, the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion placed a trav­el ban on sev­er­al Mus­lim-major­i­ty nations that has con­tin­ued to sep­a­rate and dis­place thou­sands of Mus­lim fam­i­lies in the Unit­ed States. The impact of the ban has also pre­vent­ed indi­vid­u­als from access­ing med­ical treat­ment, along with edu­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties.

To coun­ter­act the Mus­lim Ban, Con­gress­woman Judy Chu intro­duced the NO BAN Act last year, which would end this ban and any oth­er bans based on religous dis­crim­i­na­tion. This year, as the White House threat­ens to expand the Mus­lim Ban to include an addi­tion­al sev­en coun­tries to the list, we stand unit­ed in urg­ing Con­gress to pass H.R. 2214 NO BAN Act to ensure the Trump Administration’s agen­da of dis­crim­i­na­tion can go no fur­ther.

Becky Bel­core, Direc­tor of NAKASEC, said:

“To deny entry into the Unit­ed States based on reli­gious affil­i­a­tion or racial iden­ti­ty is racist and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry. Trump’s first iter­a­tion of the Mus­lim Ban sin­gu­lar­ly tar­get­ed Mus­lim major­i­ty coun­tries. This rumored expan­sion strikes at main­ly non-white major­i­ty coun­tries. Trump’s insti­tu­tion of the Mus­lim Ban is couched in moral bank­rupt­cy, Islam­o­pho­bia, and White Suprema­cy. We as a soci­ety and com­mu­ni­ty must do bet­ter. We must reject these racist, anti-Mus­lim poli­cies and ensure that such bans can nev­er exist by pass­ing the NO BAN Act!”

Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, Inter­im Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of SAALT, said:

“Insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism like the Mus­lim Ban has not only direct­ly impact­ed thou­sands of Mus­lims whose lives were torn apart because of this racist ban, but it has embold­ened white suprema­cists, sanc­tion­ing their vio­lence aimed at black and brown com­mu­ni­ties. Since the Mus­lim Ban was announced, we have tracked at least 350 inci­dents of hate vio­lence tar­get­ing Mus­lims and those racial­ized as Mus­lims, and 200 instances of xeno­pho­bic and/or Islam­o­pho­bic rhetoric from media and elect­ed offi­cials. As this Admin­is­tra­tion threat­ens to expand the destruc­tive Mus­lim Ban and issue addi­tion­al bans on preg­nant women and immi­grants with­out health insur­ance, we must stop this from going any fur­ther by demand­ing Con­gress pass the NO BAN Act imme­di­ate­ly.”

Quyen Dinh, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the SEARAC, said:

“South­east Asian Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties remain stead­fast in our sup­port of Mus­lim Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties and con­tin­ue to denounce the Mus­lim Ban. We must pro­tect the integri­ty of our immi­gra­tion sys­tem by fight­ing against dis­crim­i­na­tion and intol­er­ence with equi­ty and jus­tice. We stand with the Asian Amer­i­can and immi­grant rights com­mu­ni­ty by call­ing on Con­gress to pass the NO BAN Act to pre­vent fur­ther bias­es in our laws and ensure that com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try can con­tin­ue to reunite with their loved ones.”

Con­tacts
Sam Yu, NAKASEC
syu@nakasec.org / 213–703-0992

Sophia Qureshi, SAALT
sophia@saalt.com / 202–997-4211

Elaine Sanchez Wil­son, SEARAC
elaine@searac.org / 202–601-2970

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5 South Asian men in detention reach 75th day of hunger strike

Posted on by

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jan­u­ary 16, 2020

JENA, LOUISIANA — Five South Asian men have reached the 75th day of a hunger strike in the GEO Group-oper­at­ed LaSalle Deten­tion Facil­i­ty in Jena, Louisiana where they have been sub­ject­ed to the tor­tu­ous pro­ce­dure of forced-hydra­tion and force-feed­ing. Accord­ing to med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, 75 days with­out ade­quate nutri­tion is when vital organs begin to fail.

Free­dom for Immigrants(FFI) has filed two com­plaints with the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) Office of Civ­il Rights and Civ­il Lib­er­ties (CRCL) on behalf of the five men, demand­ing DHS address the sys­temic civ­il rights vio­la­tions the men have faced under ICE cus­tody. FFI along­side Deten­tion Watch Network(DWN), South Asian Amer­i­cans Lead­ing Together(SAALT), local advo­cates, and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als in the Louisiana area are warn­ing the men are on the brink of death and call for their imme­di­ate release.

The first CRCL com­plaint calls on ICE to use its pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al dis­cre­tion to release all five men. Each of them have for­mal spon­sors in the Unit­ed States com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing and hous­ing them while they fight their asy­lum case.

The sec­ond com­plaint, sub­mit­ted in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Physi­cians for Human Rights, address­es the sig­nif­i­cant delays in receiv­ing crit­i­cal med­ical records from ICE. Begin­ning in Novem­ber, an FFI affil­i­at­ed vol­un­teer sub­mit­ted mul­ti­ple requests to ICE for these records, with the con­sent of the men engag­ing in hunger strikes. How­ev­er, ICE has refused to release these records. With­out this crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion, inde­pen­dent physi­cians can­not con­duct an assess­ment of the med­ical treat­ment these men are receiv­ing while in deten­tion.

“Under ICE’s own poli­cies, peo­ple in deten­tion have the right to inde­pen­dent med­ical eval­u­a­tion. How­ev­er, staff at the LaSalle Deten­tion Facil­i­ty have denied our repeat­ed requests, which were made in line with their poli­cies, for accu­rate and updat­ed med­ical records. This makes it impos­si­ble for us to have a clear under­stand­ing of the hunger strik­ers’ cur­rent med­ical con­di­tions and com­plete­ly negates their access to inde­pen­dent eval­u­a­tions, which is espe­cial­ly cru­cial as they enter the crit­i­cal time in their hunger strike when vital organ func­tion­ing begins to shut down,” said Dr. Cather­ine Jones, MD, a licensed physi­cian in New Orleans.

Exter­nal med­ical review of indi­vid­u­als on hunger strikes is crit­i­cal giv­en ICE’s long his­to­ry of sys­temic med­ical neglect writ large and spe­cif­ic con­cerns with the treat­ment of hunger strik­ers in its cus­tody. On Octo­ber 2019, Dr. Parveen Par­mar, a licenced med­ical pro­fes­sion­al, reviewed the med­ical records of a man who had been on hunger strike for approx­i­mate­ly three months while detained at the El Paso ICE Pro­cess­ing Cen­ter. Upon review of the med­ical doc­u­ments Dr. Par­mar stat­ed that it was “the worst med­ical care I have seen in my 10 years of prac­tice.”

Per ICE’s own stan­dards, indi­vid­u­als in their cus­tody and their rep­re­sen­ta­tives are enti­tled to med­ical records. Free­dom for Immi­grants has iden­ti­fied licensed med­ical pro­fes­sion­als in the area who are will­ing to review the med­ical records.

State­ments:

“The men in Jena-LaSalle are on the brink of death. They would not have been forced to resort to a hunger strike if the con­di­tions of their deten­tion weren’t so bru­tal and they were released on bond. We are extreme­ly dis­turbed by the pat­terns of abuse we’ve been track­ing against South Asian asy­lum seek­ers in deten­tion since 2014. No one should have to go to such great lengths sim­ply to have their cas­es heard and to gain their free­dom. They should not be in deten­tion in the first place and the only legit­i­mate alter­na­tive is release,“ said Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, Inter­im Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of SAALT.

“On a recent vis­it to the men on a hunger strike at LaSalle, I was ver­bal­ly told one man being force-fed had a blood pres­sure that was life-threat­en­ing­ly low. Because we do not have access to his med­ical record, it is impos­si­ble to ver­i­fy and ensure he is receiv­ing the nec­es­sary med­ical atten­tion. No one should be sub­ject to tor­ture for sim­ply seek­ing a bet­ter life for them­selves,” said Michelle Graf­feo, a vol­un­teer with a Free­dom for Immi­grants-affil­i­at­ed vis­i­ta­tion group in Louisiana.

“The grow­ing num­ber of hunger strikes in ICE pris­ons across the coun­try are no coin­ci­dence. It is indica­tive of com­plete dis­be­lief in a fair legal process and the lengths ICE is will­ing to go to indef­i­nite­ly detain them. Some of these men have been locked up for near­ly 2 years,. We are deeply con­cerned that ICE appears will­ing to let these men die in deten­tion to make an exam­ple of them rather than be released to com­mu­ni­ty, where each man has fam­i­ly or close friends will­ing to pro­vide hous­ing and sup­port,” said Sofia Casi­ni, south­ern region­al coor­di­na­tor at Free­dom for Immi­grants.

“These men are demand­ing free­dom after months in abu­sive ICE cus­tody. They are brave­ly protest­ing with the only mea­sure that they have con­trol over — their bod­ies, which even ICE is vio­lent­ly inter­fer­ing with through forced-hydra­tion and feed­ing. The answer here is clear and can be act­ed on imme­di­ate­ly: ICE must release these men from its cus­tody or risk respon­si­bil­i­ty for caus­ing pre­ventable deaths,” said Silky Shah, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Deten­tion Watch Net­work.

Con­tact: sophia@saalt.org

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