Tag: Diwali

JHISN Newsletter 02/11/2023

Posted on February 11, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

The immigration news headlines this past week have been grim. A 26-year-old immigrant attempted suicide on Wednesday at the city’s new ‘migrant shelter’ in Red Hook where hundreds of men are being warehoused in inhumane conditions. At ICE’s Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, WA, private guards sprayed chemical agents on detainees who had launched a hunger strike to protest bad food, unpaid labor, and harassment. 

Beneath the headlines, at a slower tempo and often out of sight, struggles for immigrant justice continue. We report on the ongoing mobilization demanding the establishment of an official NYC school holiday to mark Diwali—a major holiday celebrated by many communities here in Jackson Heights. And as we highlight the unprecedented number of immigration cases backed up in our dysfunctional US immigration system, we ally with all those calling for truly independent immigration courts. 

Newsletter highlights: 
  1. Celebrating Diwali as an official school holiday
  2. Unprecedented backlog of US immigration cases 

1. When Will Diwali Be Recognized?

“If I trusted the mayor by his words, then Diwali would have been made a school holiday on Jan. 1, because that is the promise that he made during his campaign.” –Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani

For more than 20 years, NYC’s South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities have been trying to get Diwali—the pan-religious Festival of Light—recognized as a school holiday. Hundreds of thousands of local Hindu, Jain, Sikh, and Buddhist residents celebrate the five-day Fall holiday, which is embraced by more than a billion people around the world. But so far, neither the city nor the state has mustered the will to include Diwali on the school calendar. A new initiative in Albany is raising hopes but also provoking criticism and doubts.

In 2013, Jackson Heights City Councilperson Daniel Dromm and 16 co-sponsors were unable to get a local Diwali school holiday bill passed. Dromm tried again, without success, in 2018. At the state level, Assemblyperson Jenifer Rajkumar’s 2021 Diwali bill never made it out of committee. But many advocates were convinced that 2022 would be the breakthrough year. Before his election, Mayor Adams publicly promised that once elected, he “would take his oath of office and walk into City Hall and ‘sign it into a holiday.’”

That did not happen. Adams has adopted a new position: there is no room on the school calendar, because of the state’s requirement for 180 days of instruction. Making Diwali a holiday, he now claims, requires substituting it for another holiday, which in turn requires state approval. Mamdani strongly disputes this, noting that Adams himself had previously dismissed scheduling concerns: “There are ways to move around the calendar to get the required number of days,” Adams once told Politico. South Queens district leader Richard David points out that “whenever the city punts to Albany, it’s always a little unpredictable, and you don’t really know what’s going to happen there.” 

Many private schools in NYC already treat Diwali as a holiday. Some parents question “why Adams can’t follow his predecessor’s example when former Mayor Bill de Blasio added the Asian Lunar New Year and the Muslim holidays Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha as fixtures on the city schools calendar.” Fed-up families have resorted to simply taking their children out of school for Diwali on their own.

While the press put a harsh spotlight on Adams’ broken promise, advocates continued to apply pressure. In September, a public school student coalition circulated a petition for the Diwali holiday which gathered almost 5,000 signatures. Finally, in October, Adams joined forces with Rajkumar and Schools Chancellor David Banks in announcing a new initiative. The plan is to get the state legislature to substitute Diwali for “Brooklyn-Queens Day” or “Anniversary Day,” a holiday commemorating the founding of the first Sunday school in Brooklyn in the 1800s. The public announcement of the new Diwali initiative had a triumphal quality, as if it was already a done deal. NBC News said that Diwali “will be a school holiday in 2023.” So did NPR and TimeOut New York. Others were more cautious: “Even with over two dozen state lawmakers signed onto the legislation, community leaders in Queens remain skeptical of the efforts being made to complete a promise that they say has been made to them before,” the Queens Daily Eagle reported.

On November 2, the new City Council held a Diwali celebration in its chambers. On January 25, dozens of lawmakers and activists gathered in Albany to lobby for a bill to carry out the Rajkumar/Adams/Banks substitution plan. In the Assembly, Queens co-sponsors include Steven Raga (D-Woodside), Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside), Catalina Cruz (D-Corona), Khaleel Anderson (D-Far Rockaway) and Zohran Mamdani (D-Astoria). The sole sponsor of the matching bill in the Senate is Flushing Democrat John Liu. Rajkumar observes that “we have never seen such enthusiasm for this cause.” 

Will 2023 be the year Diwali makes it onto the public school calendar in NYC? Advocates say it is possible, if the state legislature gives approval by July. 

WHAT CAN WE DO?
  • Follow the fight for a Diwali holiday at the Diwali Coalition Twitter feed.
  • See footage of Diwali being celebrated in India in this short video.

 

2. Dramatic Backlog in US Immigration System

“When I started [as a lawyer] about 15 years ago, I could take on an asylum case, and within a three-month time frame you’d get a hearing before a judge. Now that time frame has stretched up to a five-year waiting period just to get a court date.” –Karla McKanders, Director, Vanderbilt Law School Immigration Practice Clinic

The numbers are stunning. Over 2 million pending cases in immigration courts at the end of 2022—a number that has more than doubled in the past 5 years. 9.5 million pending applications at US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) as of February 2022, with a surging backlog. At least 1,565,966 asylum seekers currently waiting for immigration hearings in the US, according to TRAC’s Immigration Project.

Behind these numbers are real people living in limbo for months and years, and spiraling stories of partners, families, beloveds, children, workplaces, and communities trying to manage profound uncertainty while sustaining hope and connection.

There are multiple reasons for the growing case backlogs. One major culprit is a history of underfunding of the immigration court system under both Democrat and Republican administrations, which has led to shortages of staff, technology, and resources. COVID shutdowns certainly played a role. Increased migration over the past decade due to economic dispossession, state violence, and environmental devastation is a factor. Also, the Trump administration intentionally jammed the immigration machinery, weakening due process protections in US immigration courts, while simultaneously increasing bureaucratic obstacles to legal immigration.

And there is no easy fix. There are no less than five different federal agencies involved with immigration processing, and four different congressional appropriations committees that fund—and underfund—their work. Right-wing electeds are actively working to slow the wheels of legal immigration while maximizing detention and deportation. Bringing down the number of backlogged immigration cases isn’t an easy target for grassroots activism. And the complexity of the US immigration bureaucracy makes popular education about the backlog difficult. All this contributes to a problem that feels increasingly intractable even as it grows more consequential.  

One step in the right direction for reforming the dysfunctional and backlogged immigration system would be for Congress to create and fully fund truly independent US immigration courts. For historically perverse reasons, US immigration courts are currently housed in the executive branch, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice-–a law enforcement agency. Together with the American Bar Association and the National Association of Immigration Judges, we support a separate immigration court system that, like other parts of the US judiciary, has meaningful autonomy from the whims of executive branch authority and is less subject to political pressure. An independent, accountable immigration court system might help to bring justice to the hundreds of thousands of lives currently stalled by the unprecedented backlog of pending immigration cases.

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

Feature Image – Khokarahman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 10/29/2022

Posted on October 29, 2022 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

 As the sun drops earlier in the sky, and as communities around the world draw in their final harvest, it is time to join in the festival of lights. Diwali, and the related festival of Tihar Utsav, were celebrated this past week throughout South Asia—and here in Jackson Heights. Over 200 people gathered on October 22 in Travers Park for a day-long Diwali event, featuring food and performances, a lamp-lighting ceremony, and speakers including a young climate justice activist and the director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, Bhairavi Desai.

 And on October 27, Adhikaar held its Fall Utsav festival. As a Queens-based, women-led immigrant justice organization for the Nepali-speaking community, Adhikaar has much to celebrate: their statewide nail salon workers campaign; the fight for economic justice for domestic workers; and the urgent work to extend Temporary Protective Status for thousands of Nepali immigrants. Adhikaar is also marking a change of seasons in leadership as executive director and long-time community organizer Pabitra Khati Benjamin transitions out of her role, and the search for a new director begins.          

Our newsletter this week features an in-depth article on the status of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The fate of tens of thousands of young DACA recipients here in New York is at stake as legislative and judicial wrangling continues, and real lives are upended by uncertainty and the threat of deportation.  

Newsletter highlights:

1. No Protection for DACA’s Young Dreamers

DACA Recipients Still in Limbo

“We were promised immigration reform in the first 100 days [of the Biden administration]…Those 100 days came and went, and we have nothing”—Catalina Cruz, the first former DACA recipient elected to NY State Assembly

President Obama inaugurated the DACA program (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in June 2012. It has been under attack by right-wing Republicans ever since. Today DACA’s future is unclear, leaving hundreds of thousands of people and their families in limbo, including tens of thousands of Dreamers here in NYC. Many are unable to work, and some face the prospect of deportation if DACA is not renewed or replaced with other pathways to legal status.

DACA has been the subject of a seesaw battle involving executive orders and litigation. In 2017, President Trump attempted to end the program by barring new and renewal applications so that DACA holders’ protections would expire over time. In July 2021, a Houston court ruled that DACA was illegal because it had not gone through the proper public notice and comment process. This month, shortly after DACA’s tenth anniversary, a Federal Appeals Court upheld the Houston decision, returning the case to the Houston court and ordering further review. As a result of the court’s recent decision, DHS policy will only allow current DACA recipients to renew their application and work authorization; no new applications will be processed. The hundreds of thousands of young people eligible for DACA can still submit a new application, but it will be set aside and not acted upon by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). 

Which States Have DACA Recipients? As of June 2022, USCIS reports there are 594,120 DACA recipients nationwide, with over 1,150,000 eligible. There are 25,580 in New York state, with 56,000 eligible.

The states with the highest number of DACA holders are:

California 169,590 Texas 97,760 Illinois 31,480 New York 24,580
Florida 23,240 North Carolina 22,670 Arizona 22,530 Georgia 19,460

 

Where Did Their Families Come From? The most common countries of birth for DACA holders are: 

Mexico 480,160 El Salvador 23,080 Guatemala 15,710 Honduras 14,390 Peru 5,610
South Korea 5,540 Brazil 4,530 Ecuador 4,230 Colombia 3,690 Philippines 2,900

According to the Migration Policy Institute, most states have more people eligible for DACA than are currently enrolled, and eight states have twice as many people eligible for DACA than are enrolled in DACA.

This is an extraordinary number of people.

What Can Dreamers Do? DACA recipients can legally live, work, and go to college in the US. They have married, had children, bought homes and cars, completed college degrees, started businesses, and worked in a variety of fields. Their taxes and labor have made substantial contributions to the US economy.

According to data from the Center for American Progress, DACA recipients boost the US economy by paying federal, state, and local taxes, buying homes, paying rent, and spending money. Nationwide, DACA recipients and their households each year pay $5.6 billion in federal taxes and $3.1 billion in state and local taxes. Based on 2018 data, their contributions in New York state include:

Federal taxes State and local taxes Homes owned Mortgage payments Annual rental payments Spending power
$374.1 million $238.8 million 800 $16.4 million $132.8 million $1.3 billion

But they do not benefit equally from the taxes they pay due to their precarious status.

What Are DACA’s Education Benefits? In many states, undocumented students have to pay the same tuition rates as international students. Such high rates can prevent people from going to college. To address this problem, in 2019 New York state passed the Senator José Peralta New York State DREAM Act which gives undocumented and other students access to New York State administered grants and scholarships that help pay the cost of higher education. DACA allows people to join licensed fields (like nursing and education), which improves their ability to get a well-paying job with health benefits.

Where Do Dreamers Work? In a 2020 survey, 89.1% of DACA recipients 25 and older who responded were employed. DACA allowed them to move to jobs with better pay and better working conditions with health benefits, and 12.9% were able to get professional licenses. Higher wages and financial independence increase their contributions to the economy.

The Center for Migration Studies, using data from 2018, reported that DACA employees were concentrated in the following industries: health care (including hospitals and nursing care facilities); retail trade (including supermarkets and pharmacies); transportation and warehousing; restaurants and other food services; support and waste management services; and manufacturing. In 2021 the Center for American Progress reported that 343,000 DACA recipients were employed in essential jobs during the pandemic, primarily in health care, education, and the food supply chain.

What’s Next? According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in June 2020, about three-quarters of US adults favor granting permanent legal status to immigrants who came illegally to the United States when they were children, with the strongest support coming from Democrats and Latino/as.

In 2012, DACA  was intended to be a temporary solution until Congress provided a pathway to citizenship. But congressional attempts to pass a solution have failed, even though there is some bipartisan support. As a result, undocumented teenagers graduating high school this year will not have protection from deportation or the ability to work. According to Neil Bradley, chief policy officer for the US Chamber of Commerce: “The inability to hire tens of thousands of high school graduates comes amid a ‘massive shortage’ of labor that has developed partly because of the country’s aging population and low birthrate” (June 2022, New York Times). Ending DACA would put families in danger of job loss, deportation, and separation from their US citizen children, and have a deleterious effect on the US economy.

Many immigrant justice organizations, including the National Immigration Law Center, United We Dream, and Make the Road NY, continue to fight for legislation to provide a path to citizenship for Dreamers and other undocumented immigrants. But for now, hundreds of thousands of young DACA recipients are constrained by the program’s two-year increments, forced to live in limbo and in fear.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.