SAJAforum

HUMAN RIGHTS: Immigrant detainees die, then disappear

The New York Times has an important piece on its front page today, about immigrants who die while awaiting deportation, and how hard it is for outside groups to learn what happened--even the basic fact of the detainee's death. In one case, a Pakistani man named Ahmad Tanveer died in September of 2005, apparently because his chest pains went ignored. But his death was only discovered in the last few weeks. From "Immigrant Detainee Dies, and a Life is Buried, Too":

Even now, most questions about Mr. Tanveer are unanswered, including just who he was and why he had been detained. The rescue of his death from oblivion took a rare mix of chance, vigilance by a few citizen activists, litigation by the civil liberties union and several months of inquiry by The Times. Even as the newspaper confirmed Mr. Tanveer’s death with jail officials, and tracked his body’s path from a Freehold morgue to the cargo hold of an airplane at Kennedy Airport, immigration authorities maintained that they could find no documents showing such a person was ever detained, or died in their custody.

Not until March 20, in response to a new request by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act, did the agency release an internal e-mail message acknowledging that the death had been overlooked. It issued a corrected list that now includes him — his first and last names transposed — among 90 people who died in immigration custody between Oct. 7, 2003, and Feb. 7, 2009.

The article quotes an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who claims that all detainee deaths have been made public. But that's promptly contradicted by the reporter, who lists other deaths that ICE hasn't. 

For more on this issue, visit Breakthrough's website.

CRIME: An Alleged Nepali Con Artist Faces Murder Charges

Kaushal Niroula, a 27-year-old Nepali man, has been charged with the murder of 74-year-old retired art dealer Cliff Lambert in Palm Springs, California.

According to a report on CBS5 (KPIX), "Niroula along with co-conspirators David Replogle, 60, a San Francisco lawyer, Russell Manning, 67, a San Francisco art broker, and Daniel Carlos Garcia and Miguel Adolfo DeLeon Bustamante, both 26, are alleged to have emptied Lambert's bank accounts, stolen his Mercedes sports car, looted his paintings and other property, and finally attempted to fraudulently sell his home."

More from KPIX:

Lambert is alleged to have been killed during a burglary of his $1.3 million home on Dec. 6, 2008. Attached to the murder charges are special circumstances allegations that the murder was committed during a burglary, which makes the five men eligible for the death penalty.

District attorney's office spokesman Michael Jeandron said he could not release information about whether Lambert's body had been found, or how Lambert's alleged murder is believed to have been committed, citing an ongoing investigation.

Often described as a charismatic and dashing young man, Niroula has had a recent history of forgery and impersonation charges in Las Vegas, Marin County, and San Francisco. Niroula was involved in an academic controversy that brought down a college president. He has several lawsuits alleging him of fraud, embezzlement and theft. Niroula was also detained in an immigration hold; he said he was seeking political asylum on basis of his close ties with the ousted Nepali royal family. 

Here’s a timeline of Niroula’s reported complaints with excerpts from several Bay Area newspapers.

2006 - Academic Controversy - New College of California, San Francisco
As a student at the New College of California in San Francisco, Niroula befriended college president Martin Hamilton. In 2006, their relationship came under fire after numerous staff complaints accused Hamilton of fixing Niroula’s grades and waiving his tuition in exchange for a $1 million donation to the college. Niroula reportedly told Hamilton that he had $3.5 million which he was unable to access because of the then-ongoing political instability in Nepal. The donation was never made.

Hamilton resigned in August 2007 ‘acknowledging irregularities but denying any grade-fixing’.  Niroula claimed he was "used as a tool to bring Martin Hamilton down." In 2008, the college lost its accreditation after the college's accreditor launched an investigation. The college was later forced to close.

BOOKS: Minal Hajratwala's "Leaving India"

We wrote in early March 2006 about Minal Hajratwala's new book in our "Authored" series,  which allows authors the chance to hold forth on the unseemly promotional end of getting a book out.

Her book, "Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents" is a nonfiction book that's getting widespread attention.

SAJA is hosting a webcast with her on Thursday, March 26, 2009, from 1-2 pm EST.
[see local time here: http://bit.ly/2crm]

Listen live or to a recording: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/saja/2009/03/26/Minal-Hajratwala-author

Or call-in live to to a NYC number: +1-347-324-5991

See her website for more info, a video trailer and much more: http://MinalHajratwala.com (first trailer I have ever seen for a book!)

IMMIGRATION: Vivek Wadhwa says "America's Loss, The World's Gain"

Long-time SAJA member Vivek Wadhwa, executive-in-residence for the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University; fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and BusinessWeek columnist, has news about his latest study, "America’s loss is the world’s gain" (scroll down to see some of his previous studies below - and a note from SAJA member Sandip Roy about a conference call on Monday with Wadhwa and other members of the study team):

From: Vivek Wadhwa <vivek[at]wadhwa.com>

My team at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley is releasing an important report on immigration on Monday morning (March 2, 2009). Journalists who agree to the Monday embargo can write to me for a copy of the report.

This report details the plight of skilled immigrants who came to the U.S. from India and China to work or study and returned home. There are no hard numbers available on how many have returned, but anecdotal evidence shows that this is in the tens of thousands. With the economic downturn, my guess is that we'll have over 100,000 Indians and as many Chinese return home over the next 3-5 years. This flood of western educated and skilled talent will greatly boost the economies of India and China and strengthen their competitiveness. India is already becoming a global hub for R&D. This will allow it to branch into many new areas and will accelerate the trend.

The U.S. has always had the luxury of being arrogant about immigration because it has been the strongest magnet for the world's best and brightest. As this paper shows, there are other strong magnets now. So immigrants who used to have to make substantial sacrifice to give their families better lives can achieve their objectives without the sacrifice -- they can return home to parents and friends…to a land where they are at the top of the social ladder rather than at the bottom.

The hollowing out that this will cause to our S&E workforce and the competition that this will create for the U.S. will hurt us for decades. Other countries like Australia, Singapore and Canada…and even Europe and Dubai have figured out that bringing in skilled talent provides a major economic boost. We haven't…We're sending ours away. We are effectively exporting our economic stimulus. Policies like those which the U.S. just enacted which prevents some banks from hiring foreign workers will have the opposite effect from what they intended -- they will send jobs abroad and scare away top talent.

I've spent 2 years on this project. You have no idea how hard it was to track down such large numbers of returnees and get them to complete a comprehensive questionairre!

Regards, Vivek

EMBARGOED UNTIL MONDAY MARCH 2, 2009, 8 A.M. EST

ESSAY: Anand Giridharadas on "India Calling"

With all the news that happened last week, NYT's "Week In Review" section on Sunday chose to run as its lead piece an essay by Anand Giridharadas, a correspondent for International Herald Tribune. The piece is called "India Calling" and the opening paras are below (with the Goa dateline).

Since there wasn't a bio box with the piece, here's what he's upto: Girihardas is living in a village working on a book project and contributing part time to IHT until June, when he leaves for Harvard, where he'll do a doctorate in political philosophy.

VERLA, India--“WHAT are Papa and I doing here?”

These words, instant-messaged by my mother in a suburb of Washington, D.C., whizzed through the deep-ocean cables and came to me in the village where I’m now living, in the country that she left.

It was five years ago that I left America to come live and work in India. Now, in our family and among our Indian-American friends, other children of immigrants are exploring motherland opportunities. As economies convulse in the West and jobs dry up, the idea is spreading virally in émigré homes.

Which raises a heart-stirring question: If our parents left India and trudged westward for us, if they manufactured from scratch a new life there for us, if they slogged, saved, sacrificed to make our lives lighter than theirs, then what does it mean when we choose to migrate to the place they forsook?

If we are here, what are they doing there?

Read his essay and post your comments below, please.

PREZ RACE: India Abroad debate on South Asian issues

The debate videos

Part 1: Introduction of the participants

Part 2: Opening comments by the Republicans

Part 3: Opening comments of the Democrats

Part 4: Discussion about the Indo-US nuclear deal

Part 5: About the meltdown of the US economy

Part 6: Outsourcing and business policies

Part 7: Healthcare

Part 8: The immigration issue and H1B visas

Part 9: Wrap up and conclusions

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of moderating the 2008 India Abroad debate on South Asian issues in this year's elections. As a political junkie, it was just the right opportunity to get some new perspectives on the elections and to understand what some leading desi Republicans and Democrats are thinking. Joining me in this enterprise was the India Abroad's influential Washington correspondent and editor, Aziz Haniffa.

The debaters, as organized by India Abroad deputy managing editor George Joseph were:

On the Republican side:

• Suhail Khan, Republican advisor on policy issues (seen in this screen grab)
• Kishan Putta, co-founder, Indian Americans for McCain
  
• Vijay Dandapani, chief operating officer, Applecore Hotels, New York

On the Democratic side:

•  Toby Chaudhuri, Democrat strategist
• Satish Poondi, who ran for office for the Edison City Council, New Jersey
• Varun Nikore, founder, Indian American Leadership Initiative.

For the record, none of these folks were speaking on behalf of the campaigns, but were "informed outsiders."

Also, we did try to get a female speaker or two, but the way the event was set up - on almost no notice - it just didn't work out this time.

You can see the videos by clicking on the links above, or by going to this India Abroad/Rediff page.

We'd love to hear what you think. Please post your comments below.

DESI NY: Roundup of recent South Asian stories

Because most of the SAJAforum bloggers are based in and around NYC, we end up relying too much on the New York Times and end up talking too much about events taking places in NYC.

Hey, non-NYers: Please help us change all this by sending us guest posts or becoming a member of our team (write to our editor, WNYC's Arun Venugopal, arunvenu[at]gmail.com).

Meanwhile, here are some recent NYC stories we haven't noted yet.

In Tense Times, Sikhs in Queens Find Respite in a Communal Meal - NYTimes.com via kwout

NYT: Joseph Huff-Hannon wrote about how Sikhs in Queens are worrying about prejudice:

From the red-tiled kitchen to the vast dining area, conversations in Punjabi ricocheted from gossip about families to subjects like forthcoming trips to India and the large number of foreclosures in this working-class neighborhood of tidy homes in southern central Queens.

In recent months, though, conversations at the temple have focused increasingly on prejudice against the city’s estimated 50,000 Sikhs, largely because the dastaar, the signature bolt of cloth that Sikh men and some women wrap around their hair, suggests to some people that the wearers are Islamic radicals.

Elephant-shaped Ganesh growth cured my ills, Queens man says via kwout

PREZ RACE: Gen. Colin Powell and the story of Kareem Khan

[See SAJAforum's extensive coverage, sources and resources about the 2008 presidential race]

The photo above, which ran in a New Yorker photo essay called "Service" and shows Elsheba Khan, an Indo-Caribbean immigrant from Trinidad at the grave of her son, Kareem Khan. The photo was cited by former secretary of state Gen. Colin Powell during his endorsement of Barack Obama on this week's "Meet the Press" (video clip below).

Here's how SAJAer and St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Aisha Sultan described the TV moment:

When Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for president, he said something I’ve been waiting to hear for the past two years.  Powell said he’s been disappointed by senior leadership in his own party who accuse Obama of being a Muslim, when he has repeatedly said he is not. But then, Powell took the next step. He said, and so what if he was?

And then he reminded us of an American hero:

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine.  It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave.  And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone.  And it gave his awards–Purple Heart, Bronze Star–showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death.  He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith.  And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey.  He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.

In the NYT, Maureen Dowd wrote a column called "Moved by a Crescent." She started by listing several things that "bugged" Powell about the Republican Party, then went on to say:

But what sent him over the edge and made him realize he had to speak out was when he opened his New Yorker three weeks ago and saw a picture of a mother pressing her head against the gravestone of her son, a 20-year-old soldier who had been killed in Iraq. On the headstone were engraved his name, Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, his awards — the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star — and a crescent and a star to denote his Islamic faith.

“I stared at it for an hour,” he told me. “Who could debate that this kid lying in Arlington with Christian and Jewish and nondenominational buddies was not a fine American?

DISCRIMINATION: Discount store chain to pay $255,000 to settle lawsuit with South Asian employees

NOTE: See below about update regarding Sikh women and turbans.

From an EEOC press release that just came to SAJA:

CONTACT: Margaret A. Malloy, Trial Attorney
e-mail: MARGARET.MALLOY[at]EEOC.GOV

NATIONAL WHOLESALE LIQUIDATORS TO PAY $255,000 TO SETTLE EEOC NATIONAL
ORIGIN, RELIGIOUS BIAS AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT LAWSUIT

Retail Chain Store Abused South Asian Employees, Federal Agency Charged

NEW YORK —A Hempstead, N.Y.-based chain of retail discount stores,
National Wholesale Liquidators, Inc., will pay $255,000 and agree to
injunctive relief to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.
The EEOC had charged that the company subjected employees to a hostile
work environ¬ment based on their race, national origin and religion
and sexually harassed an employee.

In its lawsuit, the EEOC said a National Wholesale Liquidators store
manager subjected South Asian workers to taunts about their national
origin and religion.  The EEOC also charged that the store manager
sexually harassed a female employee.  The woman, a Sikh, was told by
the manager to remove her turban because she "would appear sexier
without it."

The consent decree resolving the case, submitted for approval to U.S.
District Judge Joseph F. Bianco, provides $255,000 to nine victims of
the harassment and injunctive relief including anti-discrimination
training and monitoring.  The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court
for the Eastern District of New York on June 21, 2007 (Civil Action
No. 07 CV 2507), after the agency investigated, found that
discrimination had occurred, and first attempted to reach a voluntary
settlement.

"The EEOC hopes this settlement encourages employers to take steps to
educate their managers and employees: harassing employees based on
national origin, sex or religion is unacceptable and will not be
tolerated," said Margaret A. Malloy, the EEOC trial attorney assigned
to the case.

POLITICS: Rep. Nick Lampson courts desis in Texas

Democrats are predicted to pick up anywhere from 15 to 25 seats in the House, further strengthening the majority they established in 2006. That year, perhaps the biggest sign that the winds were shifting came in suburban Houston, when 11-term Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay was indicted and Democrat Nick Lampson won the seat. Lampson is struggling to retain the seat next month--according to the latest Cook Political Report the race is a toss-up--and if he does lose the seat, to former Navy pilot Pete Olson, it will likely be seen by the GOP as a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy environment.

I grew up in Houston and know plenty of desis who started moving to Sugar Land (which is in the district) in the late 70s, building big houses on tony cul-de-sacs. Now, it seems those same people may hold the key to the race. Anup Kaphle, SAJAforum contributor and a new media fellow at The Atlantic, has collaborated on a multimedia piece for National Journal with Jonathan Maher, examining how South Asians may help decide the election. The project was funded by News 21, an initiative of the Carnegie and Knight foundations. From "Lampson courts both Cowboys and Indians":

But Democrats see hope in the area's changing demographics: The 22nd now boasts a much more diverse constituency than it did when DeLay was first elected. White voters still make up a majority, at 60 percent, but there are also sizable communities of Latinos, African-Americans and, more recently, South Asians. Fort Bend County, in the southwest suburbs of Houston, boasts the state's highest percentage of Asian residents, according to the Almanac of American Politics.

South Asians now make up between 4 percent and 5 percent of the district's population, attracting the attention of Democrats in part because of their perceived tendency to register in high numbers. Unlike black and Latino voters, South Asians don't have a long history with either party. But many are moving toward the Democrats, in part because of objections to the GOP's position on immigration, something that the party hopes will be enough to put Lampson over the top.

The accompanying video is definitely worth watching. It shows Lampson at a fundraiser--one of "a score of South Asian events" he's attended in the last couple years. Comedian Paul Verghese performs a set, and later, as an MC speaks in Hindi and draws laughs, Lampson is shown just sitting and waiting it out. It's a great scene, telling us just how much the political landscape has changed, that these are the swing voters in a former Republican stronghold: men in turbans, women in burkhas.

Some of the local players interviewed for the piece:

• Farrukh Shamsi of the Texas Democratic Party
• Jagat Kamdar of the Indo-American PAC
• Vijay Bhuchar, Pratham
• Mustafa Tameez, Outreach Strategists

Watch the video here.