Statement on House Judiciary Hearing on Discrimination and Civil Rights of Muslim Arab and South Asian Communities

Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022

Dear Chair­man Nadler and Rank­ing Mem­ber Jordan,

As orga­ni­za­tions that work with­in Mus­lim, Arab and South Asian com­mu­ni­ties at the local and nation­al lev­el, we are pleased to see the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee hold­ing an impor­tant March 1st Hear­ing on Dis­crim­i­na­tion and Civ­il Rights of Mus­lim, Arab, and South Asian com­mu­ni­ties. We rec­og­nize the tremen­dous work orga­ni­za­tions have done to advo­cate for con­gres­sion­al hear­ings that cen­ter the ero­sion of civ­il lib­er­ties for our communities.

How­ev­er, as orga­ni­za­tions who are work­ing with impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties, we are con­cerned about the fram­ing of the hear­ing. We write to offer rec­om­men­da­tions for future hear­ings per­tain­ing to our com­mu­ni­ties. Such hear­ings are part of the offi­cial his­tor­i­cal record and often end up paint­ing a nar­ra­tive and push­ing pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions that fail to clear­ly name state vio­lence, struc­tur­al Islam­o­pho­bia, and the War on Ter­ror poli­cies as the dri­vers of indi­vid­ual acts of inter­per­son­al vio­lence. South Asian Amer­i­cans Lead­ing Togeth­er (SAALT) issued reports in 2017 and 2018 doc­u­ment­ing the direct cor­re­la­tion between polit­i­cal rhetoric, fed­er­al poli­cies, and the increase in inci­dents of hate vio­lence, which con­tin­ues today.

Increas­ing­ly, we have found that the lim­it­ed frame­work of civ­il rights and civ­il lib­er­ties that often focus­es exclu­sive­ly on secu­ri­ty and dis­crim­i­na­tion does not ade­quate­ly cap­ture the broad impacts of sys­temic vio­lence on our com­mu­ni­ties, which include eco­nom­ic, health, hous­ing, and edu­ca­tion, among oth­er social deter­mi­nants. This lim­i­ta­tion has con­tin­ued to fail in com­pre­hen­sive­ly and sub­stan­tive­ly address­ing the scope and mag­ni­tude of the vio­lence our com­mu­ni­ties have expe­ri­enced in the twen­ty years after 9/11.

We reit­er­ate the requests in our state­ment for the record to the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee in response to your April, 2019 Hear­ing on Hate Crimes and White Nation­al­ism to once again take the fol­low­ing rec­om­men­da­tions in plan­ning hearings:

  • Broad­en the frame of “civ­il rights and lib­er­ties” to bet­ter under­stand how state vio­lence, struc­tur­al Islam­o­pho­bia, and the War on Ter­ror poli­cies are the dri­vers of indi­vid­ual acts of inter­per­son­al violence.
  • Engage more direct­ly and much fur­ther in advance with com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions, grass­roots and advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions at the local lev­el in devel­op­ing the frame­work for a hear­ing and iden­ti­fy­ing witnesses.
  • Hold mul­ti­ple pan­els that cen­ter sur­vivors, impact­ed com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, and com­mu­ni­ty-based organizations.
  • Ensure such hear­ings are not gov­ern­ment plat­forms for Islam­o­phobes, big­ots, and racists to pro­mote their hate­ful agen­das as if they are a legit­i­mate jux­ta­po­si­tion to com­mu­ni­ty-based testimony.
  • Offer more lead time for orga­ni­za­tions to sub­mit state­ments for the record.
  • Cre­ate space to hear direct­ly from one group rather than group­ing Mus­lim, Arab, and South Asian iden­ti­ties togeth­er. Often in such group­ings, impor­tant racial, gen­der, eth­nic, class, caste, and reli­gious iden­ti­ties are erased.
  • Invite grass­roots and com­mu­ni­ty-based groups to speak who hold an abo­li­tion­ist and trans­for­ma­tive jus­tice frame­work to address state, insti­tu­tion­al, and inter­per­son­al forms of vio­lence. We want to ampli­fy the Mus­lim Abo­li­tion­ist Futures grass­roots pol­i­cy agen­da call­ing for abol­ish­ing the War on Ter­ror and build­ing com­mu­ni­ties of care and hope such hear­ings mov­ing for­ward include pro­gres­sive pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions that tie togeth­er the var­i­ous, inter­sect­ing, and com­plex root caus­es of vio­lence rather than priv­i­leg­ing nar­row, reformist pol­i­cy agendas.

As groups on the front­lines of defend­ing our com­mu­ni­ties tar­get­ed by puni­tive gov­ern­ment poli­cies, our orga­ni­za­tions hope there is a rad­i­cal shift in how such hear­ings are car­ried out. Sur­vivors of state vio­lence, hate vio­lence, and big­otry deserve hon­est inquiries and true jus­tice from their elect­ed offi­cials. Con­gress must hold sub­se­quent hear­ings that com­pre­hen­sive­ly and sub­stan­tive­ly con­front and address these issues.

Signed,
Jus­tice For Mus­lims Col­lec­tive
South Asian Amer­i­cans Lead­ing Togeth­er (SAALT)
Mus­lim Abo­li­tion­ist Futures Network

View as a PDF here.

Call to Action: Protect Immigrant Women’s Ability to Work

​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.

Sin­cere­ly,
Your Con­stituent

11th Annual NCSO Convening & Advocacy Day

Join us this May for a powerful convergence of NCSO leaders in Washington, D.C.!

The Nation­al Coali­tion of South Asian Orga­ni­za­tions (NCSO) Con­ven­ing will gath­er over 100 rep­re­sen­ta­tives from our NCSO part­ner orga­ni­za­tions on May 9, 2018 in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Not only will it pro­vide the oppor­tu­ni­ty to build NCSO strength through strat­e­gy shar­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing, but we will work col­lec­tive­ly to expand knowl­edge on poli­cies and leg­is­la­tion tar­get­ing our com­mu­ni­ties. We have also orga­nized space to enhance our skills relat­ed to advo­ca­cy as well as make for region­al and issue based caucuses.

On May 10, 2018 we will head to Capi­tol Hill for Advo­ca­cy Day. NCSO mem­bers will con­nect with gov­ern­ment offi­cials and Mem­bers of Con­gress. You will have mul­ti­ple oppor­tu­ni­ties to engage with pol­i­cy mak­ers, from a morn­ing Con­gres­sion­al Brief­ing to one-on-one meet­ings with Con­gres­sion­al offices in the afternoon.

To learn more about the 2018 NCSO Con­ven­ing and Advo­ca­cy Day, please review our FAQ . Then, register to attend the Annual NCSO Convening and Advocacy Day where you can con­nect in per­son with NCSO mem­bers and be a part of build­ing our col­lec­tive power!

FAQs: NCSO Convening & Advocacy Day 2018

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Are the events acces­si­ble by pub­lic transportation?

The NCSO Con­ven­ing will take place at the George­town Con­fer­ence Cen­ter. Advo­ca­cy Day will take place on Capi­tol Hill, and SAALT will pro­vide a shut­tle for all NCSO Con­ven­ing par­tic­i­pants to attend Advo­ca­cy Day.

What time are check-in and check-out at the George­town Con­fer­ence Center?

Check-in time to the Cen­ter is 4:00pm. Check-out time is 11:00am.

Are the events acces­si­ble for those with phys­i­cal disabilities? 

All event venues are acces­si­ble. Please con­tact almas@saalt.org with spe­cif­ic ques­tions or requests regard­ing phys­i­cal accessibility. 

What is the dress code?

May 9th | NCSO Con­ven­ing: casual/business casual 

May 10th | Advo­ca­cy Day: business/professional attire 

 Will there be inter­preters avail­able for the events?

All events will be offered in Eng­lish. Reg­is­trants may request an inter­preter dur­ing the online reg­is­tra­tion process. For addi­tion­al in-lan­guage requests, please reach out to almas@saalt.org no lat­er than March 15, 2018. 

 How will I get to the events?

The NCSO Con­ven­ing will take place at the George­town Con­fer­ence Cen­ter. Advo­ca­cy Day will take place on Capi­tol Hill, and SAALT will pro­vide a shut­tle for all NCSO Con­ven­ing par­tic­i­pants to attend Advo­ca­cy Day. Out­side of this, par­tic­i­pants are respon­si­ble for their pub­lic trans­porta­tion, taxi, and oth­er trav­el costs while attend­ing events. 

Register here.