FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Octo­ber 10, 2016
Con­tact: Suman Raghu­nathan, suman@saalt.org

On Octo­ber 10, 2016, South Asian Amer­i­cans Lead­ing Togeth­er (SAALT) part­nered with MTV and sev­er­al oth­er orga­ni­za­tions on a ground­break­ing project called “#BeyondThe­Wall”, a 10’x35’ inter­ac­tive video instal­la­tion stand­ing in the heart of New York’s Her­ald Square that serves as a dig­i­tal forum to show­case per­spec­tives on immi­gra­tion reform, racial diver­si­ty, and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism in the Unit­ed States. The video wall, metaphor­ic of the much debat­ed bor­der wall of the 2016 elec­tions, pro­vides vis­i­tors an oppor­tu­ni­ty to see video sto­ries from par­tic­i­pants such as Diane Guer­rero, Arturo Cas­tro, Amani Alkhat, and Cristela Alon­zo, along with real-time user-gen­er­at­ed sub­mis­sions over social media, about how immi­gra­tion and diver­si­ty are at the heart of the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence.

“The Unit­ed States is a nation of immi­grants, and with a pop­u­la­tion of more than 4.3 mil­lion South Asians, we are the most rapid­ly grow­ing demo­graph­ic group in the US,” stat­ed Suman Raghu­nathan, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of SAALT. “A major­i­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty is for­eign born, which makes immi­grant rights and racial jus­tice a top pri­or­i­ty for us. Post 9/11, our research shows that South Asians both old and young have faced tremen­dous hate vio­lence, sus­pi­cion, and sur­veil­lance, and have heard xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric spew­ing from can­di­dates and politi­cians across the coun­try. This part­ner­ship with MTV gives South Asians and oth­er groups a chance to make their voic­es heard on their real­i­ties and the issues affect­ing them.”

With Octo­ber 10 mark­ing Colum­bus Day and Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Day, a reminder of the nation’s mul­ti­cul­tur­al ori­gins, this curat­ed inter­ac­tive forum pro­vides in-per­son and online audi­ences a way of lis­ten­ing and adding to the ongo­ing dis­cus­sion about immi­gra­tion and diver­si­ty in the US, a cen­tral issue in the 2016 elec­tions.

In the run up to the elec­tions, SAALT has released YOUR VOICE YOUR VOTE: A Guide for South Asian Vot­ers, which pro­vides key elec­tion dead­lines and resources, South Asian vot­er pri­or­i­ties and data, as well as the pol­i­cy posi­tions of the two main Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. One such pri­or­i­ty for South Asian vot­ers is immi­gra­tion reform. Recent­ly, the Supreme Court declined to rehear argu­ments in Unit­ed States v. Texas, effec­tive­ly deny­ing mil­lions of immi­grants and over 200,000 South Asians the ben­e­fits of the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion’s 2014 exec­u­tive actions of Deferred Action for Par­ents of Amer­i­cans and Law­ful Per­ma­nent Res­i­dents (DAPA) and the expan­sion of Deferred Action for Child­hood Arrivals (DACA). SAALT’s Immi­gra­tion Fact­sheet, avail­able here, explains the cur­rent state of the law and pro­vides key resources for those want­i­ng to learn more.

With immi­gra­tion reform and racial diver­si­ty at a high pitch in both the pub­lic and polit­i­cal spheres, and with hate vio­lence and xeno­pho­bic rhetoric con­tin­u­ous­ly affect­ing the South Asian com­mu­ni­ty nation­wide, the #BeyondThe­Wall project pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty for all of us to speak, lis­ten, and engage in a mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tion about the ideals of this coun­try, and how to per­haps one day reach them.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sep­tem­ber 11, 2016
Con­tact: Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, lakshmi@saalt.org

It has been fif­teen years since the attacks of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, fif­teen years since South Asian Amer­i­cans vis­i­bly joined the con­ver­sa­tion on race in Amer­i­ca, and fif­teen years of poli­cies that have stripped our com­mu­ni­ties of civ­il lib­er­ties. In the mean­time, South Asian Amer­i­cans have emerged as the fastest grow­ing demo­graph­ic group in the nation, at near­ly 4.5 mil­lion strong. While Sep­tem­ber 11th gal­va­nized engage­ment and mobi­liza­tion in our com­mu­ni­ties and seed­ed mul­ti­ple South Asian orga­ni­za­tions across the coun­try, there has been lit­tle progress toward stem­ming the tide of vio­lence against our com­mu­ni­ties. Accord­ing to FBI hate crimes sta­tis­tics released last year, anti-Mus­lim crimes are the only cat­e­go­ry to see an increase. For the first time this year, we will be able to see the results of the FBI final­ly adding cat­e­gories for hate crimes com­mit­ted against Sikhs, Arabs, and Hin­dus. Even this data will only tell a frac­tion of the sto­ry: report­ing of hate crimes by local law enforce­ment is not manda­to­ry. Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment esti­mates indi­cate that the actu­al num­ber of hate crimes com­mit­ted against Mus­lim, Arab, and South Asian com­mu­ni­ties is like­ly 25 to 40 per­cent high­er than what the FBI reports.

In response to the attacks in Paris and San Bernardi­no last year and the ensu­ing back­lash against our com­mu­ni­ties, SAALT cre­at­ed an online data­base to track inci­dents of hate vio­lence and speech tar­get­ing South Asian, Arab, and Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties and indi­vid­u­als. In just eight months, we have already doc­u­ment­ed near­ly 100 inci­dents of hate vio­lence and almost 70 instances of xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric tar­get­ing our com­mu­ni­ties. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling giv­en our 2014 report, “Under Sus­pi­cion, Under Attack” cap­tured 76 inci­dents of hate vio­lence and 78 instances of xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric, over­whelm­ing­ly moti­vat­ed by anti-Mus­lim sen­ti­ment, in a three-year peri­od. In that report, we also found that over two-thirds of the rhetoric came from lead­ers at the nation­al lev­el. The cur­rent rhetoric of white suprema­cy under­pinned by anti-Mus­lim and anti-immi­grant sen­ti­ment has made the 2016 elec­tion year ugli­er than ever. These sen­ti­ments are not mere­ly words alone; they are borne out in a num­ber of poli­cies that rein­force those mes­sages by paint­ing our com­mu­ni­ties as un-Amer­i­can and dis­loy­al, which have very real con­se­quences in our com­mu­ni­ties. The sharp rise in both xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal rhetoric and hate vio­lence cre­ate an increas­ing­ly hos­tile cli­mate for our com­mu­ni­ties that make us all vul­ner­a­ble.

On the oth­er side of this equa­tion, we have seen the mas­sive growth of a racial pro­fil­ing and sur­veil­lance infra­struc­ture by our gov­ern­ment that sin­gu­lar­ly tar­gets Mus­lim Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties in the name of nation­al secu­ri­ty. Our com­mu­ni­ties see a mixed mes­sage when the gov­ern­men­t’s poli­cies make us the tar­gets of racial and reli­gious pro­fil­ing even as we face hate vio­lence and ask law enforce­ment to keep us safe. The result­ing and pro­found mis­trust our com­mu­ni­ties have in gov­ern­ment leads to hate crimes going under­re­port­ed and cre­ates a vicious cycle of vic­tim­iza­tion. One case in point is the fed­er­al Coun­ter­ing Vio­lent Extrem­ism (CVE) pro­gram, which has bur­geoned into a mul­ti-pronged effort to spy on Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties in their places of work, wor­ship, recre­ation, and now even in schools through the ‘Don’t Be a Pup­pet Pro­gram’ in the name of iden­ti­fy­ing “rad­i­cal extrem­ism.” Rather than address­ing the grow­ing threat of white suprema­cy as per­pe­tra­tors of vio­lence, CVE nar­row­ly focus­es on Mus­lim Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties alone. The South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter has care­ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed the growth of white suprema­cist groups, includ­ing a trou­bling spike in 2015. CVE evokes the Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Entry-Exit Reg­is­tra­tion Sys­tem (NSEERS) pro­gram imple­ment­ed imme­di­ate­ly after Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001. Through NSEERS, more than 80,000 South Asian, Mus­lim, Arab, and Mid­dle East­ern men were required to reg­is­ter with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment; thou­sands more were sub­ject­ed to addi­tion­al inter­ro­ga­tion, deten­tion, and depor­ta­tion. The exten­sive, expen­sive, and mis­guid­ed pro­gram did not result in a sin­gle ter­ror­ism-relat­ed con­vic­tion. The Depart­ment of Jus­tice pol­i­cy on the use of race by law enforce­ment green­lights pro­fil­ing in the name of nation­al and bor­der secu­ri­ty, rein­forc­ing racial and reli­gious pro­fil­ing every­day in our neigh­bor­hoods, bor­ders, and air­ports. No pol­i­cy address­es the epi­dem­ic of police vio­lence tar­get­ing the Black com­mu­ni­ty, which is the foun­da­tion of racial pro­fil­ing in this coun­try. Final­ly, our immi­gra­tion sys­tem con­tin­ues to cast our com­mu­ni­ties as sus­pi­cious and dis­loy­al. This year, Bangladeshi Mus­lim asy­lum seek­ers were con­fined, force-fed, and ulti­mate­ly deport­ed by Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) while their cas­es were still being appealed in immi­gra­tion courts. Rather than being pro­tect­ed from polit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion in Bangladesh, these asy­lum seek­ers were denied their civ­il rights in the U.S. and returned home against their will, almost cer­tain to face vio­lence.

The polit­i­cal rhetoric is painful and dan­ger­ous, but the poli­cies that are unfold­ing every­day in our com­mu­ni­ties are even more insid­i­ous. Regard­less of the out­come of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, the impact of these poli­cies and the ris­ing tide of hate vio­lence will con­tin­ue if we do not demand change now. We have come a long way in fif­teen years because our com­mu­ni­ties are vis­i­ble, vocal, and much more orga­nized. The work ahead of us is about trans­form­ing our demo­graph­ic pow­er into polit­i­cal pow­er. As our nation plans for a future with a major­i­ty peo­ple of col­or pop­u­la­tion, includ­ing South Asian Amer­i­cans at the fore­front of that growth, we must ensure our coun­try’s found­ing prin­ci­ples apply equal­ly across com­mu­ni­ties. Fif­teen years after Sep­tem­ber 11th, lib­er­ty and jus­tice for all remains a dream deferred for Mus­lim, Arab, and South Asian com­mu­ni­ties. On this Patri­ot Day, we are remind­ed that as a nation we can and must do bet­ter.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 23, 2016
Con­tact: Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, lakshmi@saalt.org

SAALT is pro­found­ly dis­ap­point­ed that today’s Supreme Court 4–4 split in U.S. v. Texas failed to reach a deci­sion on the Deferred Action for Parental Account­abil­i­ty (DAPA) and expand­ed Deferred Action for Child­hood Arrivals (DACA) pro­grams, part of the Pres­i­den­t’s exec­u­tive action on immi­gra­tion issued in Novem­ber 2014. The orig­i­nal DACA pro­gram announced in 2012 remains, and the Supreme Court rul­ing upheld a low­er court rul­ing block­ing the DAPA and expand­ed DACA pro­grams. The pro­longed and unnec­es­sary legal chal­lenge to these com­mon-sense immi­gra­tion pro­grams comes at the expense of mil­lions of immi­grant youth and their fam­i­lies. As a result of today’s rul­ing, mil­lions of immi­grants, includ­ing 450,000 undoc­u­ment­ed Indi­an Amer­i­cans alone, can­not con­tribute to the econ­o­my and pur­sue their dreams. The only real solu­tion is leg­isla­tive change through Com­pre­hen­sive Immi­gra­tion Reform.

Today, over four years since the imple­men­ta­tion of the orig­i­nal DACA pro­gram, more than 728,000 out of an esti­mat­ed 1.16 mil­lion eli­gi­ble peo­ple have received DACA, allow­ing them to pur­sue high­er edu­ca­tion and employ­ment with­out con­stant fear of depor­ta­tion. Near­ly 225,000 Indi­an and Pak­istani indi­vid­u­als are eli­gi­ble for DACA and DAPA. India ranks among the top ten ori­gin coun­tries with indi­vid­u­als eli­gi­ble for DACA, and ranks third among indi­vid­u­als eli­gi­ble for DAPA. At least 23,000 Indi­an and Pak­istani youth are eli­gi­ble for DACA and expand­ed DACA. At least 200,000 Indi­an and Pak­istani indi­vid­u­als are eli­gi­ble for DAPA. In April, SAALT stood with allies across the coun­try at the Supreme Court dur­ing the oral argu­ments on this case to express our hopes for a rul­ing that would sup­port the dreams of mil­lions of immi­grant fam­i­lies nation­wide. That same day we released a video series fea­tur­ing South Asians impact­ed by our bro­ken immi­gra­tion sys­tem illus­trat­ing just how much our com­mu­ni­ty has at stake in ensur­ing DAPA and expand­ed DACA move for­ward.

“Exec­u­tive action on the part of the Pres­i­dent was nec­es­sary to move past a grid­locked Con­gress that refused to pass com­mon-sense immi­gra­tion reform leg­is­la­tion. With­out this, mil­lions of immi­grants will not be eli­gi­ble for the full ben­e­fits they deserve, like health­care. Con­gress needs to do its job. Polls con­tin­ue to show that a bipar­ti­san major­i­ty of Amer­i­cans sup­port a roadmap to cit­i­zen­ship for undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants. Today’s rul­ing is a cat­a­lyst for the next Con­gress to act and ensure that all immi­grants have a path to the full ben­e­fits of cit­i­zen­ship and allow us to live up to our core val­ues of fair­ness and oppor­tu­ni­ty,” said Suman Raghu­nathan, SAALT’s exec­u­tive direc­tor.

In the mean­time, we encour­age indi­vid­u­als to con­tin­ue apply­ing for the exist­ing DACA pro­gram, which was nev­er under legal scruti­ny, and should be ful­ly uti­lized by those eli­gi­ble. There are sev­er­al actions the Pres­i­dent can still take to pro­vide relief for immi­grants. Black Alliance for Just Immi­gra­tion named five, includ­ing end­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion pro­grams between ICE and local law enforce­ment. The case will return to the low­er courts and we join our friends at Nation­al Immi­gra­tion Law Cen­ter in urg­ing the Depart­ment of Jus­tice to seek a rehear­ing at the Supreme Court when a ninth jus­tice, who should have already been in place, is final­ly con­firmed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 12, 2016
Con­tact: Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, lakshmi@saalt.org

South Asian Amer­i­cans Lead­ing Togeth­er (SAALT) joins the nation in mourn­ing the vic­tims of the dead­ly shoot­ing in Orlan­do’s Pulse gay night­club. Dur­ing the month of Ramadan and a month ded­i­cat­ed to uplift­ing and cel­e­brat­ing the Les­bian, Gay, Bisex­u­al, Trans­gen­der, Queer, Inter­sex, Asex­u­al (LGBTQIA) com­mu­ni­ty, it is espe­cial­ly heart­break­ing to mark the dead­liest mass shoot­ing in our nation’s his­to­ry. We join our part­ners and allies, includ­ing the Mus­lim Alliance for Sex­u­al and Gen­der Diver­si­ty (MASGD), the Nation­al Queer Asian Pacif­ic Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), and SALGA-NYC in stand­ing against the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of entire com­mu­ni­ties in the face of this tragedy.

We take this time to hon­or our part­ner­ship with LGBTQIA com­mu­ni­ties to take on hate vio­lence and domes­tic ter­ror­ism direct­ed at our com­mu­ni­ties. We will con­tin­ue to stand shoul­der to shoul­der to speak out, demand pol­i­cy change, expect law enforce­ment to pro­tect our com­mu­ni­ties, and lift up each oth­er’s human­i­ty. We can­not allow tragedy to divide our com­mu­ni­ties when sol­i­dar­i­ty is more impor­tant than ever. And, for every­one who stands at the inter­sec­tion of Mus­lim and LGBTQIA iden­ti­ties, we offer you extra love and sup­port. We see you and we stand with you.

LGBTQIA com­mu­ni­ties have been unique­ly tar­get­ed for hate vio­lence. Sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion is the sec­ond high­est bias moti­vat­ing hate crimes, accord­ing to the lat­est FBI sta­tis­tics. The media and politi­cians have already begun char­ac­ter­iz­ing the Orlan­do shoot­er as a “ter­ror­ist” in the absence of any facts. The col­lec­tive racist, Islam­o­pho­bic, and homo­pho­bic rhetoric and sen­ti­ment from our lead­ers, gone large­ly unchecked, have cre­at­ed an envi­ron­ment that ratio­nal­izes back­lash and it can­not con­tin­ue. We will con­tin­ue to fight against poli­cies that jus­ti­fy pro­fil­ing and sur­veil­lance of our com­mu­ni­ties that ulti­mate­ly make us all unsafe. Please uti­lize this list of LGBT Mus­lims who can speak to media.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 18, 2016
Con­tact: Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, lakshmi@saalt.org

The fight for immi­grant rights reach­es Supreme Court
Wash­ing­ton, D.C. — Today, the Supreme Court heard open­ing argu­ments in U.S. v. Texas, a mis­guid­ed and unnec­es­sary chal­lenge to emi­nent­ly com­mon-sense immi­gra­tion pro­grams that allow some aspir­ing Amer­i­cans to remain with their fam­i­lies, con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing to the Amer­i­can econ­o­my, and pur­sue their dreams. An esti­mat­ed 5.2 mil­lion immi­grants, includ­ing at least 200,000 undoc­u­ment­ed Indi­an Amer­i­cans and count­less more South Asians, are eli­gi­ble for DAPA and expand­ed DACA announced under Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s exec­u­tive action on immi­gra­tion in 2014. Both pro­grams stand on rock-sol­id legal ground and would grant a fair chance at the quin­tes­sen­tial Amer­i­can dream. South Asian Amer­i­cans Lead­ing Togeth­er (SAALT) joined an ami­cus brief led by the Nation­al Immi­gra­tion Law Cen­ter (NILC) in sup­port of these pro­grams.

SAALT also joined thou­sands of oth­ers out­side the Supreme Court this morn­ing call­ing for these pro­grams to move for­ward swift­ly and keep fam­i­lies togeth­er. Rather than wel­com­ing the hard work and real hopes and dreams of mil­lions of immi­grants, includ­ing almost four mil­lion who are the par­ents of U.S. cit­i­zen chil­dren, a Texas fed­er­al dis­trict court judge decid­ed to block these pro­grams over a year ago lead­ing them to unfair legal scruti­ny all the way up to the Supreme Court. DAPA alone is esti­mat­ed to boost the Amer­i­can econ­o­my by $61 bil­lion in just five years.

“DAPA and the expand­ed DACA pro­grams are the lat­est in the long strug­gle for immi­grant rights in this coun­try that should have end­ed with com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform leg­is­la­tion in Con­gress, which the Sen­ate passed with bipar­ti­san sup­port in 2013,” said Suman Raghu­nathan, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of SAALT. “While Con­gress has been unable to advance a bill, we hope the Supreme Court will uphold the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of these pro­grams as a first step toward pro­tect­ing mil­lions from depor­ta­tion, includ­ing thou­sands of undoc­u­ment­ed South Asians. This occurs as South Asians are the fastest grow­ing demo­graph­ic in the coun­try, total­ing near­ly 4.3 mil­lion strong as of 2013.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Novem­ber 10, 2015
Con­tact: Lak­sh­mi Sridaran,lakshmi@saalt.org

SAALT is out­raged by the Fifth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals deci­sion last night to block the expand­ed Deferred Action for Child­hood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Account­abil­i­ty (DAPA) pro­grams, key com­po­nents of Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s exec­u­tive action on immi­gra­tion issued last Novem­ber. This fol­lows the Fifth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals deci­sion in May to main­tain the injunc­tion on expand­ed DACA and DAPA issued by Judge Hanen of the South­ern Dis­trict Court of Texas in Feb­ru­ary.

“Once again, the imple­men­ta­tion of these much need­ed pro­grams that five mil­lion undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants, includ­ing 200,000 Indi­an Amer­i­cans and count­less more South Asians, could ben­e­fit from has been delayed and pos­si­bly jeop­ar­dized alto­geth­er,” said Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, Direc­tor of Nation­al Pol­i­cy and Advo­ca­cy at SAALT. “We are encour­aged by the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice’s com­mit­ment to take this case before the Supreme Court. While it will be at least Jan­u­ary of next year before the Supreme Court makes a deci­sion on whether to take this case, we urge the Oba­ma Admin­is­tra­tion to stem the tide of depor­ta­tions in the mean­time.”

“We con­tin­ue to stand with immi­grants who deserve the right to stop liv­ing in sec­ond-class sta­tus, attend col­lege, work above the table for fair wages, and be reunit­ed with their fam­i­lies,” said Suman Raghu­nathan, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of SAALT. “Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is ful­ly with­in his legal author­i­ty to imple­ment exec­u­tive action on immi­gra­tion, and it is essen­tial these pro­grams be per­mit­ted to pro­ceed, espe­cial­ly due to Con­gress’ repeat­ed fail­ure to act on immi­gra­tion.”

We hope this mis­guid­ed deci­sion does not dis­cour­age indi­vid­u­als from apply­ing for the orig­i­nal DACA pro­gram that launched in 2012 and con­tin­ues to be avail­able. Over half a mil­lion young peo­ple have already ben­e­fit­ed from DACA.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 5, 2015
Con­tact: Lak­sh­mi Sri­daran, lakshmi@saalt.org

Three years ago today on August 5, 2012 a known white suprema­cist mur­dered six Sikh-Amer­i­cans at their Gur­d­wara or place of wor­ship in Oak Creek, Wis­con­sin. SAALT con­tin­ues to mourn and hon­or the vic­tims: Suveg Singh, Sat­want Singh Kale­ka, Ran­jit Singh, Paramjit Kaur, Sita Singh, and Prakash Singh. This past week­end, the Oak Creek com­mu­ni­ty came togeth­er along with hun­dreds from around the coun­try for the annu­al Char­di Kala 6K Run/Walk in the spir­it of hope and relent­less opti­mism.

Oak Creek was a tragedy — not only for South Asian and Sikh Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties, but for the nation as a whole. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, what hap­pened that day is becom­ing less of an anom­aly due to a num­ber of rea­sons: South Asians are the most rapid­ly grow­ing demo­graph­ic group in the coun­try set­tling in new des­ti­na­tion com­mu­ni­ties. And, unre­lent­ing hate vio­lence con­tin­ues to tar­get South Asians and com­mu­ni­ties of col­or at large.

In the last six months alone, there have been vio­lent inci­dents tar­get­ing Hin­du, Arab, and Sikh com­mu­ni­ties in New Jer­sey, North Car­oli­na, and Cal­i­for­nia, respec­tive­ly. Cur­rent poli­cies do not allow for such inci­dents to be eas­i­ly cat­e­go­rized as hate crimes. This must change. These events are also part of an alarm­ing trend of white suprema­cist activ­i­ty, fur­ther illus­trat­ed by the dead­ly shoot­ing at the Moth­er Emanuel AME church in Charleston in June fol­lowed by a wave of arsons at Black church­es in the South. Com­mu­ni­ties of col­or are increas­ing­ly fac­ing a com­mon threat of vio­lence from white suprema­cy, even as our nation grows more racial­ly and eth­ni­cal­ly diverse. In a 2011 study, Pol­i­cyLink esti­mat­ed that the Unit­ed States will be major­i­ty peo­ple of col­or by the year 2040.

Sad­ly, this growth is paired with a cur­rent polit­i­cal debate that is increas­ing­ly char­ac­ter­ized by polit­i­cal rhetoric that paints our com­mu­ni­ties as dis­loy­al, sus­pi­cious, and un-Amer­i­can. SAALT’s report Under Sus­pi­cion, Under Attack, released last Sep­tem­ber doc­u­ment­ed 78 instances of xeno­pho­bic polit­i­cal speech over a three-year peri­od span­ning 2011–2014, of which near­ly two-thirds occurred at the nation­al lev­el.

We can only expect the debate to get worse this elec­tion cycle. GOP pres­i­den­tial con­tender Don­ald Trump has already described Mex­i­can immi­grants as “rapists and mur­der­ers.” Repub­li­cans in Con­gress con­tin­ue to push an anti-sanc­tu­ary cities bill that will under­mine rela­tion­ships between law enforce­ment and immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties. We have also seen the Coun­ter­ing Vio­lent Extrem­ism pro­gram emerge from fed­er­al gov­ern­ment this year that dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly focus­es on Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties and not enough on the real threats of white suprema­cy and domes­tic ter­ror­ism.

But, our com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ue to push for change. The Oak Creek shoot­ing helped dri­ve a crit­i­cal change in the FBI hate crimes report­ing pro­to­col this year. For the first time, there are now cat­e­gories for crimes moti­vat­ed by anti-Sikh, Hin­du and Arab sen­ti­ment. The White House also cre­at­ed a high-lev­el Inter­a­gency Task Force last year focused on address­ing hate vio­lence nation­wide.

How­ev­er, it is crit­i­cal that there are strong hate crime poli­cies at the state and local lev­el, which is where the rela­tion­ships between local res­i­dents, com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions, and law enforce­ment are most impor­tant. The may­or of Oak Creek coor­di­nat­ed his city staff, police, and fire depart­ments to devel­op a mod­el first response munic­i­pal pol­i­cy after the shoot­ing. The Arab Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of New York and oth­ers suc­cess­ful­ly advo­cat­ed for the Brook­lyn Dis­trict Attor­ney’s office to estab­lish a unit ded­i­cat­ed to inves­ti­gat­ing hate crimes last year. This is the kind of infra­struc­ture that all com­mu­ni­ties need to address and hope­ful­ly pre­vent hate vio­lence.

In the spir­it of Char­di Kala or relent­less opti­mism, we hon­or the vic­tims of that trag­ic day three years ago and stand with our 51 com­mu­ni­ty part­ners nation­wide to help stem the tide of relent­less vio­lence tar­get­ed at our com­mu­ni­ties and all com­mu­ni­ties of col­or.