Immigration

Sharon Bala Warns Against Collective Amnesia in “The Boat People”

February 8, 2021

Sharon Bala’s The Boat People tells a nuanced tale of migration. Inspired by real events , the novel follows Mahindan, a Tamil asylum-seeker who flees persecution amidst civil war Sri Lanka, only to find himself facing deportation by the Canadian government for suspected ties to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). A multi-narrative work, … Read More

Dilruba Ahmed Reaches for the Beyond In “Bring Now the Angels”

May 20, 2020

The title Bring Now the Angels is as much a God-like order as a human plea. Dilruba Ahmed’s new book-slash-summoning-slash-prayer reckons with expanse as painstakingly as it does limitation. Throughout, it takes on health, mortality, and immigration with disquieting force. The first section of Bring Now the Angels considers the circumstances surrounding the passing of … Read More

Trump Administration Ends TPS for Nepal

April 29, 2018

On April 26th, The Department of Homeland Security ended the TPS program for Nepal, giving the roughly 9,000 current TPS holders until June 24, 2019 to adjust their status or “self-deport.” This month, Kajal reported on Nepali-American activists’ fight to preserve TPS for their country, and the consequences that could come from revoking this already … Read More

Meet the Nepali-Americans Fighting For Immigrant Justice, Part 2

April 17, 2018

On a dewy January afternoon, I take the 7 train, “the most diverse commute in the country,” to a temple in Jackson Heights, Queens, a center of South Asian diasporic life in New York. After pausing to clap my hands in time to the Sikh prayer service happening on the first floor, I eventually find … Read More

Meet the Nepali-Americans Fighting for Immigrant Justice, Part 1

April 16, 2018

A brisk wind whipped around NYPD barricades in front of Trump Tower on a mid-November evening. Outside of the building, a group of immigrants’ rights activists from across New York City set up shop to rally for the passage of a clean DREAM Act and more comprehensive immigration reform. Speakers representing organizations that work with … Read More

Reading List: How Black Political Resistance Informed South Asian Resistance

April 9, 2018

Black political resistance, in many ways, paved the road for South Asian resistance. Here’s a reading list that highlights that history. These pieces explore the family stories of working-class South Asian immigrants in Harlem and New Orleans, solidarity between Black liberation activists and Indian freedom fighters, and contemporary takes on South Asian Americans and the … Read More

We Have Rights, Kumail Nanjiani Says in These ACLU Videos

April 5, 2018

On March 27th, the nonprofit Brooklyn Defender Services in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) launched an online “We Have Rights” campaign, dedicated to spreading knowledge to multilingual immigrant communities about the steps individuals can take to protect themselves and their loved ones from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In a press release, ACLU … Read More

ICE Arrests Bangladeshi Man Who Has Spent 30 Years in the U.S.

February 6, 2018

UPDATE 2/8/2018: Syed Ahmed Jamal has been granted a temporary stay by Judge Glen Baker to allow his brother time to correct Jamal’s immigration status. Syed Ahmed Jamal of Lawrence, Kansas, was arrested by ICE on January 24th from his front yard while he was trying to drop his daughter off at school. Jamal, 55, had … Read More

How the DOJ Silently Stripped a Brown Man of American Citizenship

January 11, 2018

On January 5th, a federal judge in New Jersey ordered the revocation of US citizenship of a naturalized citizen named Baljinder Singh. According to the Department of Justice, Singh had misled immigration authorities by filing applications to adjust his immigration status under two different names—Baljinder Singh and Davinder Singh, in the process concealing that there … Read More

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