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:
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.
SAALT staff and allies at a #NoMuslimBanEver rally outside the Supreme Court of the United States in April 2018.
Please reach out to sruti@saalt.org with any questions or requests.
Yesterday, white supremacy was on full display at the US Capitol and at government buildings across the nation. These attacks represent a blatant and illegal attempt to deter democracy and promote white supremacist beliefs — which harm everyone. All of us have a duty to respond, not only with condemnation, but with sustained action against the instigators and their supporters.
Though Congress has certified the results of the presidential election, they must do more. They must call for the removal of President Trump and begin impeachment proceedings immediately. Republican leadership must ensure there is a peaceful transition of power on and past Inauguration Day, and all members of Congress who incited, encouraged, or participated in this attack must be expelled for breaking their Oaths of Office. Those responsible for yesterday’s attacks must be held equally accountable under the law.
We must also be careful about how to characterize yesterday’s events. SAALT’s work on national security and immigration issues since 9/11 has made it clear that labeling acts of extremist violence as terrorism is dangerous and paves the way for the targeting of Black and Brown communities, as seen through the War on Terror framework. We can and must stand vigilant against yesterday’s attacks without resorting to such characterizations by demanding that what happened yesterday is characterized as white supremacist violence. SAALT stands with our Black allies, who are rightfully pointing out the double standards in how the white supremacists behind yesterday’s events are being treated, as compared to the peaceful protesters during last summer’s uprisings.
“For our own communities, who were retraumatized by yesterday’s events, we are with you. The past four years have been a relentless surge of policies and attacks against the bodies and rights of so many communities, ours included. SAALT will continue to press for the reversal of these xenophobic and racist policies from the Trump era and push for bold solutions that will improve the lives of everyone.”
Simran Noor, SAALT Board Chair
As South Asians, we also have work to do within our communities. There are reports of Indian Americans being present at and encouraging yesterday’s attempted coup. Given what we witnessed from the 2020 Howdy Modi event in Texas featuring Trump and Modi, this is no surprise. We have work to do within our own communities to raise awareness about the links between Hindu nationalism and white supremacy, and the dangers of allying with the elements who orchestrated yesterday’s events. Simply put: We cannot condemn one fascist and excuse another. SAALT calls on its entire community to hold these truths and stand united against nationalism, fascism, and imperialism on all its fronts.
SAALT will continue to share news and coverage of the violence, as well as help connect those affected by the chaos with local resources. Please reach out to sruti@saalt.org with any questions or requests.
93% of immigrants who are on H‑4 visas and have work permits or employment authorization documents (EAD) are South Asian women. Many of them are essential workers, providing critical services during this pandemic, but they’re not able to work because of delays in processing the renewal of their work permits. Join us in urging Members of Congress to ask President-Elect Biden to extend the validity of all expired H‑4 EAD work permits on day one of his administration.
Here are 4 ways you can step up and advocate for our communities' EAD recipients:
If you have less than a minute, spread the word to your loved ones and community members via WhatsApp. Clicking on the link will also allow you to copy and paste the message to other platforms, such as Signal or SMS.
If you have three minutes, send our pre-written letter to your Members using democracy.io. This form uses your address to determine your elected officials and their contact information. You can use SAALT’s pre-written letter (which is also available in full under the image at the bottom of this page), or edit it and write your own, as well as tag it under “Immigration” to ensure it catches the eyes of your Representatives.
If you have five minutes, tweet at your Members by clicking here and tagging them. You can find the name of your Representatives here, then find their Twitter accounts.
If you have more than five minutes, and have experienced difficulties with EAD processing due to USCIS delays, tell us your story here. Hearing the human impact of this issue is essential for journalists and lawmakers to understand why it’s so urgent that the incoming Biden Administration extends work permits for all those on H‑4 visas. If you know loved ones or community members who have similar stories, ask them to detail their experiences, too.
SAALT, alongside our allies Asian Americans Advancing Justice AAJC, NAPAWF, and Raksha, are working with Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman to demand that the incoming Biden Administration protects our communities’ EAD recipients by extending the validity period of all expired H‑4 EADs to resolve processing delays. For more information, or to ask any further questions, please contact the SAALT’s Policy Manager Mahnoor Hussain at mahnoor@saalt.org.
Dear Congressperson:
I am a resident of your district, and am writing to request that you sign on to Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman’s letter to President-elect Joe Biden and his Administration, demanding immediate relief to the many families adversely impacted by significant delays in the processing of work authorization documents (EADs) for people on H‑4 visas. These delays in EAD renewals are causing lapses in work authorization and job losses affecting many people, mostly women of color, in my town. This is why I respectfully request that you ask President-elect Joe Biden and his Department of Homeland Security to publish a Federal Register notice on day one of their administration to extend the validity period of all expired H‑4 EADs.
As you know, in 2015, after several years of advocacy by community members, including various South Asian women’s organizations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a rule allowing certain H‑4 dependent spouses of H‑1B visa holders to legally seek employment in the US. Once an H‑1B holder is sponsored for employment-based lawful permanent resident (LPR) status (otherwise known as a green card) his or her H‑4 visa-holding spouse may apply for work authorization. This rule presented an important step towards rectifying gender disparities in our immigration system as around 95% of H‑4 visa holders who have secured work authorization are women. Before the rule was granted, many women on H‑4 visas described depression and isolation in moving to a new country and not being allowed to work outside of the home.
These women on H‑4 visas work in a variety of fields including as essential healthcare workers, including in research and development roles at pharmaceutical companies; these women play tremendously important roles as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, women are losing and will continue to lose their jobs until this is put right, disrupting the lives of their families and the functioning of employers in our districts. I respectfully request that you co-sign Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman’s letter to President Elect Joe Biden before December 9, 2020 and stand with the H‑4 EADs in our community.
November 17, 2020: Yesterday, the FBI released its 2019 Hate Crime Statistics Report, showing the deadliest year on record and the highest number of hate crime murders since 1991. A total of 7,314 hate crime incidents were reported by law enforcement agencies. The FBI data illustrates a slight decrease from last year’s report, and yet we know that communities of color, LGBTQ folks, and people with disabilities continue to be targets of hate violence by white supremacist individuals and institutions.
Major findings of the report:
The FBI report cites the Sikh community saw a slight decrease in the number of reported anti-Sikh incidents in 2019, after a record 200 percent increase in 2018. And while crimes motivated by anti-Muslim sentiment decreased, with 176 reported, overall hate crime incidents targeting Muslims and those perceived as Muslims has been up since 2015. As of November 1, 2020, SAALT and our partners have tracked 348 incidents of xenophobic or Islamophobic rhetoric, and 733 incidents of hate violence targeting Muslims and Asian Americans, and those perceived as Muslim or Asian American, since November 2015.
Racially motivated hate crime incidents made up the majority of hate crimes reported in 2019, with nearly half of the incidents motivated by anti-Black racism. The number of anti-Black hate crimes was the highest it’s been since 2011.
There were 51 hate crime murders in 2019. 22 of those were the racially motivated murders in the single El Paso shooting last August. There was a nine percent increase in reported hate crime incidents against Latinos, and yet the deadly El Paso shooting was categorized under “anti-other race/ethnicity/ancestry” despite well documented anti-Mexican sentiment. As reported in SAALT’s COVID report, the “other” categorization often obscures the true impact on communities.
Of the known offenders, over 50% identified as white.
The numbers depict a far from accurate picture of the real prevalence of hate violence incidents in the U.S. The federal government has yet to mandate hate crime reporting at the state and local levels. During an extraordinary year of uprisings and state violence against Black and brown communities, it is imperative for Congress to pass the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act, (H.R. 3545; S. 2043), which helps close vast gaps in hate crime statistics and improve data collection on hate crimes by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. The bill also includes a restorative justice component which provides an “alternative sentencing” provision that would allow specific defendants supervised release to undertake educational classes or community service directly related to the harmed community.
Hate violence targeting South Asian, Arabs, and Muslims is fueled by state sanctioned white supremacy. Policies and practices like the Muslim Ban, family separation, and ongoing police violence endanger our communities because they embolden white supremacists. From the constant vandalizing of mosques, harrassment of Muslim women, to the targeting of South Asians in their own neighborhoods, we have seen the very real and constant impact of this violence. SAAT is committed to advocating for policy and community based solutions that address hate violence from its root cause — by fighting all the manifestations of state sanctioned hate.
Election win opens up greater potential for pushing policies that matter to South Asian communities
November 9, 2020: SAALT congratulates President-elect Joe Biden and Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris on their historic win and we look forward to the opportunity to push for progressive and inclusive policies for South Asian Americans across the U.S with the new Administration. Despite attempts by the Trump Administration to thwart the democratic process, the hard work of organizers, poll workers, and volunteers ensured greater accountability around voter suppression than ever before. Ultimately, this led to a clear and decisive victory for the Biden campaign.
Lakshmi Sridaran, Executive Director of SAALT, said: “This election opens up greater potential for pushing the policies that matter to our communities. We will rely on the same vigilance that propelled historic voter turnout and accurate vote counts to hold this Administration accountable to our communities. This means a complete overhaul of our immigration system that ensures a pathway to citizenship for all, COVID-19 relief packages that include immigrants of all status, increased language access resources, an end to detention and the militarization of U.S. borders, and the transformation of policing as we know it. We will celebrate and heal, but we also know the work of undoing the immense harm of the last four years and affirmatively laying the groundwork for meaningful systems change requires intention and political will. In order for this Administration to truly acknowledge the Black and brown communities whose years of organizing delivered this weekend’s victory, beyond representation, we expect them to exercise that political will to the full extent on behalf of our communities.“
The historic voter turnout and inspring shifts of traditionally conservative states were a direct result of years of organizing by Black and brown communities who felt the brunt of the Trump Administration’s xenophobic and racist polices and dangerous rhetoric. In particular, a growing and increasingly engaged South Asian population played a critical role in Georgia. The South Asian population in the South tripled from 2000 to 2014, and of the top ten metropolitan areas in the U.S. that experienced the largest South Asian population growth, five were in the South. Groups like Georgia Muslim Voter Project, Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, and Project South, working to implement Stacey Abrams’ strategy of appealing to disenfranchised voters of color instead of relying on the Democratic Party’s usual outsized focus on moderate white voters, harnessed the political organizing power of communities of color across the state. This critical shift in priorities should inform the Biden-Harris Administration.
However, given the narrow margin of victory in this election that took days to determine, it is clear that there remains definitive support for racist and xenophobic policies and that white supremacy is a dangerous force that will remain a threat to our communities. This is paired with the violent Islamophobia and Hindu nationalism aimed at many South Asian populations. Dismantling these interlinked systems of institutionalized violence is an important part of the work we now have an opportunity to directly address with the new administration, especially given Vice President Harris’ identity. At SAALT, we look forward to continuing to build community power, strengthening coalitions across communities of color, and advocating for just and equitable federal policies alongside the new Administration.
South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) released the report Unequal Consequences: The Disparate Impact of COVID-19 Across South Asian Americans today, highlighting the urgent need for funders and policy makers to gather accurate disaggregated data on South Asian communities in the U.S. to be able to understand and respond to the needs that have emerged since the onset of the pandemic.
The report examines areas of the U.S. with among the largest South Asians populations including New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, and the Bay Area and Central Valley in California and draws primarily on interviews with community leaders who are members of the National Coalition of South Asian Organizations (NCSO), a national community survey, and media reports. SAALT also launched an interactive map and video testimonials to further highlight the impact of the pandemic on South Asians.
Key findings of the report include:
South Asian Americans who were already vulnerable have been most directly impacted by the pandemic — whether due to their immigration status, their experiences with domestic violence, living with underlying health conditions, or unsafe working environments. Every interviewee shared that, as a result, community members are experiencing mental health challenges.
Data on COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are currently incomplete as statistics are under counted in South Asian American communities, often labeled as “other Asian” or “unknown” race categories.
South Asians are at high risk if they contract COVID-19; they are four times more likely than the general population of having heart disease or diabetes, putting them at greater risk of coronavirus-caused death. Other compounding risk factors include multi-generational housing, lack of language accessible public health materials and government resources, and insufficient protections based on employment or immigration status.
Every survivor-support organization SAALT interviewed explicitly named a drastic increase in gender-based domestic violence.
Government agencies have neglected to provide Limited English Proficient (LEP) community members with culturally appropriate services and language accessible information, impeding access to government services and relief funds.
85% of respondents to SAALT’s community survey are worried about immigration — specifically being able to travel outside of the U.S., as well as anxiety over recent executive orders targeting green cards, H‑1B work visas, and student visas.
South Asian American community organizations are filling in the gaps in access to health, food, housing, and employment as a remedy to failing government social infrastructure.
“One of the most important lessons from watershed moments of crisis, like 9/11, the 2016 presidential election, and now the COVID-19 pandemic, is that South Asian American communities have deeply divided experiences. The South Asian populations in the U.S. who were primarily targeted after 9/11, most impacted by this Administration’s racist policies, and most vulnerable to COVID-19 are also the populations most marginalized within our own communities because of immigration status, class, caste, religion, and LGBT + identity. While developing a shared narrative across these differences is valuable for building collective power, only by centering the experiences of these populations do we truly understand the magnitude and range of impact of these crises.”
19 years ago today, 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001. Our government’s response known as the “War on Terror,” has cost more than 500,000 lives worldwide. This number does not even include the lives lost to interpersonal hate violence ignited by this state violence.
Four days after 9/11, Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh business owner, was planting flowers outside of his gas station in Mesa, Arizona when he was shot and killed. We later learned that his shooter had reportedly told a waitress at Applebees “I’m going to go out and shoot some towel heads,” and “We should kill their children, too, because they’ll grow up to be like their parents.”
This was the first of 645 incidents of violent backlash aimed at South Asian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Middle Eastern, and Arab Americans in the first week after 9/11.
Incidents of hate violence targeting our communities have continued unabated since since 9/11. SAALT has tracked 679 incidents since 2015 alone. Today we renew our commitment to fighting the deeply entrenched federal policies that emerged from the “War on Terror,” including the current Muslim Ban.
In the midst of this current public health tragedy that has disproportionately impacted Black and brown communities and has led to the death of nearly 200,000 people in the U.S., we’ve simultaneously seen a dramatic rise in COVID-related hate violence attacks targeting Asian Americans. In SAALT’s forthcoming COVID-19 report, we mark the different forms of hate violence, once again ignited by our government since the pandemic, which you can preview here.
This current crisis, like all crises, has reinforced that we don’t all experience moments of crisis equally. Depending on class, immigration status, caste, religious or ethnic background, South Asians are targeted at different scales and magnitudes. At SAALT we’re dedicated to acknowledging these disparate experiences, but also what unites us across communities. Earlier this month in Irving, Texas, a South Asian family received hate mail saying if Indian and Chinese immigrants don’t stop taking American jobs, “we will have no choice but to shoot mercilessly immigrants of Chinese and Indian descent…” White supremacists don’t necessarily distinguish within our communities with the same efficiency as our government, which is why building collective power is so critical.
On this anniversary, we honor all the lives destroyed by hate violence and state violence, and ask you to join us in fighting racism and white supremacy in all its manifestations.
Take a stand against hate violence by… - Participating in bystander training. - Learning about abolition and strategies to combat violence that do not involve police.
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.
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.
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
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.
