• Make undocumented immigration presence in the U.S. a crime – students on F-1 visas who drop below a full-course load or immigrant workers who are laid off and cannot find work could be deported and made criminals. • Criminalize U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who come in contact with undocumented immigrants – advocates, medical professionals and others who work with undocumented immigrants may be subjected to penalties. • Enhance Department of Homeland SecurityÂ’s powers to detain individuals indefinitely – this could exacerbate the targeting that individuals of South Asian descent have already endured by law enforcement since 9/11. • Grant state and local law enforcement agencies inherent authority to enforce immigration laws (also known as the CLEAR Act) – this endangers public safety as undocumented immigrants will be less likely to report crimes and assist in investigations. * * * • Criminalize unlawful presence and retroactively make a second offense an “aggravated felony” – as a result, millions of undocumented workers, visitors and students would become criminals; and the effect of being an aggravated felon makes many forms of relief from deportation unavailable to many immigrants. • Grant DHS officials virtually unchecked power to deny naturalization – under the guise of national security, this would affect all applicants for citizenship and apply retroactively. • Limit administrative and judicial review for immigrants in many situations – requiring immigrants to waive such rights would result in increased deportations without the chance to present their case in federal court. • Expand the grounds for indefinite immigration detention – this contradicts Supreme Court decisions placing limits on detention and could increase the targeting and detention of South Asians.

Many of these provisions not only affect lawfully present immigrants, but also affect US citizens. Moreover, I don’t accept your implicit equation of “legal” with “legitimate” immigration. First, there are many, many reasons why individuals who are lawfully here may suddenly find themselves out of legal immigration status, and until very recently the law was much more sensible in giving individuals opportunities to rectify those situations if, on a case-by-case basis, it were appropriate to do so. The Sensenbrenner/Frist/Specter approaches do not.

Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, as I’ve noted before, the reason we have so many non-citizens who are not lawfully here is not because there are vast numbers of moral wrongdoers or insufficient resources for enforcement. To the contrary, we’ve been pouring unprecedented resources into enforcement and border control for the better part of a decade, and it hasn’t reduced the number of undocumented immigrants in the country. Rather, the fundamental problem is that the laws themselves are broken, since they don’t recognize for the economic and social realities behind migration flows.

That’s why a broad range of groups who often don’t agree with each other on other issues — liberals and conservatives, organized labor and business, civil rights advocates and religious leaders — have recognized that we need a comprehensive approach to immigration reform, one that provides a path to permanent residence, recognizes the economic need for immigration and creates legal opportunities for future flows of immigrants, reduces family immigration backlogs, and protects worker rights. The “enforcement-only” approaches will not address any of these underlying issues, and when they don’t work, the same people will simply come back to us in a few years saying that we need to get “even tougher.”

The India conference is divided into two panels - The first: U.S. – India relations is being moderated by Sanjay Puri and the speakers are Neelam Deo [Indian Consul General in New York], Ambassador Frank Wisner [Vice Chairman AIG, Ex American Amb. to India], Anil Padmanabhan [Bureau Head, India Today Magazine], Congressman Frank Pallone [invited] and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney [invited]

Second Panel – Kashmir: Tremors to Stability Salman Haidar [Former Indian Foreign Secretary, Senior Fellow at USIP], Hassan Abbas [Former Advisor to Benazir Bhutto, Fellow at Harvard University], Sarah Khan [Kashmiri perspective], Rahul Pandit [Kashmiri perspective]

With your [sepia people] permission, may I post the link to the conference website?

Indian Americans are the nation’s most educated and affluent ethnic minority in US. Whether it is being leaders in the medical profession, providing financial advice to the public, or simply paying taxes, Indian Americans contribute a great deal to this country’s prosperity. Yet the community is facing diverse immigration problems. The major immigration problems facing the Indian American Community are: BACKLOG IN VISA PROCESSING: India has been designated by the United States State Department as the country with the largest volume of visa applications. Common concerns among both large and small US businesses is disruption in conducting business meetings and efficient business processing due to the failure of expedited approval of visa applications. India US India trade has been increasing at a rapid 25% per year. Increasing Visa Service staffing is one of the ways to expedite the application processing time and respond to the backlog. V1 VISA: This category of Visa allows spouses and children of Green Card Holders or Permanent Resident Aliens visitation rights to the United States while they await their own Green Card application to be finalized. A House Bill (H.R. 3708) has been introduced by Congresswoman Jackson Lee to extend this Visa Category.

That’s all they have to say about the entirety of immigration reform. Obviously, there’s much more to say and care about — there are entire organizations devoting all of their resources to the issue, and a representative sample of posts to these pages reveals many more issues than USINPAC bothers to mention.

But then, USINPAC has the gall to go on to say the following:

USINPAC is leading the grassroots lobbying efforts that are extremely necessary for effective legislative reforms with immigration issues as a whole. USINPAC is actively engaged itself with the policymakers on these issues.

Yeah, right. Such a narrow, parochial understanding of the issue — even as it affects 1st generation Indian Americans — completely belies the notion that USINPAC is “leading the grassroots lobbying efforts” on “immigration issues as a whole.” I’m quite certain they haven’t the slightest idea what those issues even entail, whether “as a whole” or merely in part.

Just to rub it in, take a look at their press releases for the last few months — in the midst of the most vigorous debate over immigration reform since 1996, and with a real threat looming that Congress might enact one of the worst immigration bills since the 1920s, USINPAC doesn’t have a word to say on the issue. On this issue, USINPAC doesn’t even represent the interests of the 1st generation in any meaningful, issue-based way.

For me, the fact that there are only about 2,000,000 Indians here, probably less than 3.5 million South Asians total, representing barely 1% of the total American population and a tiny fraction of one percent of South Asians globally speaks to the fact that we need to have a more global sense of our own role in world affairs as a diaspora and as a region. I think we’re being re-colonized, and I think that these various rising wealthy classes are being used to mask that. But that’s just me, and I’m crazy.

See comment 5 for the answer:

1. I think abhi, and indeed many mutineers, support this issue being lobbied. Sounds like abhi and other 2nd/3rd gens in the past have been unimpressed by USINPAC’s strictly 1st gen outlook.

FISI and USINPAC share a vision of a militaristic India, antagonistic to Pakistan, and to different degrees, i.e. between outright hatred and blatant indifference, share contempt towards the rights of Indian Muslims. USINPAC made no statement about the Gujarat genocide in 2002. Both are tied to a vision of India as a partner in the neoliberal imperialist project, alongside Israel and the U.S.

Dear Honorable. [......]:

Re: Request to Co-Sponsor bill HR 4974 / S 2429

A bill to amend the Atomic Energy Act to give effect to the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement was introduced in the House of Representatives (HR 4974 ) and the Senate (S 2429) on March 16, 2006.

In the House, the bill was introduced by Rep Henry Hyde and Rep Tom Lantos, and in the Senate by Senator Richard Lugar.

I request you to CO-SPONSOR THE BILL AND VOTE FOR IT.

Sincerely,