SAJAforum

UK: London Mayor Boris Johnson "Struts His Funky Stuff"

Last week, London's new Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson made a pitch in support of the upcoming London Mela, a major festival celebrating British Asian arts and culture that some have called the "Asian Glastonbury." Speaking at the press launch for the festival, which will be held in early August, Johnson urged Londoners to "get on down" to the festival and "strut [their] funky stuff." He acknowledged that he had merely a "passing" acquaintance with bhangra and reminisced about his effort to learn some moves at a cousin's wedding in Delhi:

I was told you had to do "lightbulb lightbulb, motorbike motorbike." I practiced a great deal, and I had my kurta pajama, and my chappals, and my everything else, and I thought I looked absolutely tremendous. And everybody else turned up in a suit. [link]

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MEDIA WATCH: Gay Rights and the Indian Press

On June 29, hundreds of people in Delhi, Bangalore and Calcutta joined an ebullient rainbow of slogan-chanting marchers demanding more rights for gay people in India. (Jyoti Gupta, my colleague on SAJAforum, covered the coverage; flag graphic from here)

For several years, I have been trying to gauge attitudes in the Indian media towards gay issues and to draw some general conclusions. Although one often hears that Indian society as a whole is not welcoming towards gay people — whether it is conservatives or gay rights activists making the claim — the Indian media, and indeed the Western media reporting on India, are full of gay-themed stories. The question is not whether there is coverage of gay people and the issues that concern them, but rather how they are portrayed.

[Note that whenever I say “gay” in this piece, I mean Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT), and whatever other sexual and gender identities people choose for themselves. I am not a fan of acronyms that try to be all-inclusive because they end up excluding people. The term "queer," a convenient catch-all, is often eschewed by journalists because although it is a word that has been reclaimed by the gay community as a positive label, in some contexts it retains its original derogatory sense.]

All the Indian newspapers whose coverage I regularly follow reported on the marches: The Times of India, the Hindustan Times, and Express India (before and after, actually) as well as NDTV, where it is a “most read” story. It received wide coverage in the West, and I read articles about it in The Guardian, AFP, the BBC, The Washington Post, and even in Gulf News (Dubai) and The Scotsman. Newsweek and Time also had pieces. Notably absent was The New York Times, but their correspondent seems to have been tied up with writing a hard-hitting piece on the stalled nuclear deal.

I found Western and Indian coverage of the event largely indistinguishable, which was surprising because there often is quite a difference. The articles said what happened--several hundred people gathered in Delhi, Bangalore and Calcutta and marched--why it was important for the marchers (because homosexuality, or as the Indian Penal Code colorfully states it “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” is illegal in India and they want this changed) and who opposes it (among others, the BJP, which is the main party of the Hindu Right).

WORKPLACE: Former Sikh employee sues Disney World, citing discrimination

A Florida musician who worked for Disney World contends that he was fired because the “Disney look” does not include a beard and a turban.

Sukhbir Channa, a 24-year-old trumpet player, worked at Disney World from late 2005 to early 2006.  In a lawsuit filed against Disney last week he claimed he was dismissed from his job because of his beard and turban. The lawsuit also says Channa reapplied for the job the following year, but was not rehired because of his facial hair.

Channa discussed the case at a Tampa news conference earlier this week.  According to the Orlando Sentinel:

[Channa] is seeking $1 million in damages, class-action status for the lawsuit, and a court order to prevent "further discrimination against Sikh employees and prospective employees."

"It was very insulting to be told I was a great trumpet player, I was qualified for the gig and a strong asset, but my looks still prohibited me from anything that involved me being seen by the public," Channa said.

"This is my career. This is what I do for a living. This is what my passion is," he said.   

The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF) is representing Channa in the lawsuit.  In a press release posted on SALDEF’s website, chairman Manjit Singh said:

The Walt Disney World Company is widely regarded as the iconic American company. It is shameful for Disney to claim that a person doesn't have the 'Disney Look' because it implies that Sikhs are not sufficiently American.

A Disney spokeswoman told the Sentinel that Channa never reapplied for a position in 2006 and that the company does not discriminate against Sikhs.

"We value and respect diversity in our cast members and treat each request [for an accommodation] individually," spokeswoman Jacquee Polak said. "The type of accommodation varies with the type of request, job and location."

You can watch a WTVJ video story about this, including soundbites from Channa.

What do you think?  Post your comments below.

CONTROVERSY: Sri Lankans in Canada accused of funding terrorism

Big news out of Canada last week as an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police revealed thousands of Sri Lankans based in Canada have allegedly been funding terrorist activities by the Tamil Tigers.

From the Toronto Globe and Mail's coverage:

The Tigers' operation in Canada, responsible for providing 15 per cent of global funds for the secession movement, identified potential donors by postal code and used a "sales team" of locals to extract the cash, alleges the 400-page police affidavit unsealed in the Federal Court of Canada this week.

The affidavit suggests the Toronto offices of the World Tamil Movement - a non-profit organization - may have been generating funds for the Tigers. The RCMP says it has also obtained a significant letter sent to Toronto from the head of the Tamil Tigers. Velupillai Prabhakaran, one of the world's most sought-after fugitives, is said to have urged that Canadian Tamils commit about 15 per cent of the global contribution to his cause.

The money was moved using an elaborate system with the leaders of the World Tamil Movement acting as “straw men and figureheads who got their direction from Sri Lanka.”

Participation in the scheme was not exactly voluntary:

Payment is said to have been made easy - and almost impossible to avoid. Tamils were allegedly encouraged to enter into pre-authorized payment schemes, so transfers to the World Tamil Movement would be no harder than paying a credit card. Lists of who paid - and who didn't - were so meticulously kept, the Mounties say, that Canadian Tamils who returned to Sri Lanka for visits risked being questioned by local Tamil Tiger henchmen who knew whether visitors had made contributions in Canada.

Sitha Sittampalam, the president of the World Tamil Movement, denied the charges and said the Tigers should not be classified as a terrorist group, the Star reported on Saturday.

"We do not have any fundraising activities for terrorism," or any connection with the Tigers, Sittampalam told the Star yesterday during an interview in the Tamil movement's Scarborough office.

However, he said: "We consider LTTE as a movement to fight and liberate our people. We don't consider the LTTE as a terrorist organization.

"We feel that the (Canadian) government is really misplaced in doing this, in listing it as a terrorist organization.

"It has the support of the people. It has a cause. It has an objective. It's not violence for the sake of it without any cause.

What do you think? Post your comments and any updates below.

ACCIDENT: Six killed in car crash in Pennsylvania

Six Indian citizens heading to Niagara Falls from Troy, Michigan were killed in a car crash Saturday.  The crash took place on Interstate 90, in Pennsylvania, and claimed 4 co-workers and 2 of their wives. From the Detroit Free Press:

The driver, Kaushik Deb, 26, of Troy, died on impact.

James identified the passengers killed as Manoj Jharia, 35; Mili Jharia, 28; Nitin Agrwal, 29; Swati Singhal, 25, and Subham Choudhary, 24. The Jharias, Agrwal and Singhal were from Jabalpur, Choudhary from Indore and Deb was from Calcutta, but they all appeared to live in communities throughout Oakland County.

Deb, Choudhary, Manoj Jharia and Agrwal were Syntel software writers.

The Jharias were married, as were Agrwal and Singhal, James said. Neither couple had children.

The only survivor, Nitin Gupta, 28, was in the front passenger seat, police said. He was treated and released from a hospital.

According to the Erie Times-News, the exact cause of the crash is unknown, but the minivan they were in crossed the median, rolled and was hit by a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. All six bodies will be sent back to India.

The families of all the victims in India have been notified, Jonathan James, a spokesman for Syntel Inc., said Sunday.

SUICIDE: Ganesh Santhanakrishnan, former PhD candidate

Twenty-seven-year-old Ganesh Santhanakrishnan, a former doctoral candidate who had become homeless and mentally unstable, committed suicide by jumping off the Tappan Zee Bridge, just north of New York City. This happened on April 3, a day or two after being released from the Westchester Medical Center's psychiatric unit and three years after moving to the US from Tamil Nadu. At the time of his death he had been sleeping in a storage shed. From The Journal News, April 12:

State police didn't make Santhanakrishnan's name public until yesterday when they finally made contact with the man's father in his native India. It turns out that the young man had been living the life of a loner in Ossining after losing his computer-related job in New Jersey.

"He was alone in the country and apparently was experiencing some significant mental issues," said state police Investigator Noel Nelson. "You could imagine what that must have been like for him - not to have anybody to either confide in or to be of assistance."

Neighbors on Albany Post Road said that, over the past year, he exhibited increasingly erratic behavior, noting that he would chase cars and one time even ran after the mailman with a piece of lumber.

"He was essentially a nuisance, chasing people down the street, chanting in the middle of the night, clapping his hands loudly till all hours of the night," said Chuck Mosello, owner of Corvettes of Westchester, located across the street from where the man was staying. "The guy was not well."

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy of The Journal News has a recent update on Ganesh, where she's interviewed his distraught mother in Chennai. She also portrays him as an academically accomplished but fun-loving guy whose life went downhill after he lost student funding.

"He loved to read Frederick Forsyth novels, and had the most infectious laugh," said Girishankar Gurumurthy, 27, who works for Texas Instruments in Bangalore, India.

These descriptions, however, bear little resemblance to what neighbors in Ossining witnessed during the past nine months. Santhanakrishnan seemed to descend into a mental abyss, howling into the night, sleeping in a storage shed. He had lost an extreme amount of weight. Gurumurthy himself viewed a recent picture of his old friend and said he hardly could recognize the man he knew in college.

MISSING: Two Indian soldiers, somewhere in California

The search is on for two Indian soldiers who went missing after a joint counter-terrorism exercise between American and Indian forces at a Marine base in California. Sunita Sorabhji covered it for India-West:

More than 120 soldiers from the 1/1 Gorkha Rifles Regiment attended Exercise Shatrujeet 2008, an 11-day combined arms exercise conducted by U.S. Forces and members of the Indian Army.

Exercise Shatrujeet 2008 began Mar. 10 and ended Mar. 21 with a dress parade at nearby Camp Pendleton. The two soldiers – Sanjay Mahato and Santosh Thapa – were reported missing when they failed to show up for the parade.

Nicole Thompson, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, confirmed the two soldiers had disappeared from Camp Pendleton. Referring to a statement, Thompson told India-West the Indian consulate in San Francisco had contacted the State Department on Mar. 28 for assistance with the case.

But it's likely this is something as simple - and embarrassing - as desertion. From The Times of India:

"The two soldiers, who are from 1/1 Gorkha Rifles and hail from Nepal, have been declared AWOL (absent without leave). Mahato and Thapa did not take any weapon, ammunition or their passports with them," said an officer.

"If they do not return after 30 days, they will be declared deserters. They [will be] dismissed from service and face penal action on being arrested. It looks like a case of illegal immigration. After our contingent returned from the US on March 23, a court of inquiry is underway into the episode," he added.

Coverage elsewhere:

• AP
• NDTV

TIBET: Worldwide protests continue, China continues crackdown

UPDATE (4:09 p.m. March 20)

New York-based Human Rights Watch has condemned the Nepali government for using excessive force against Tibetan exiles. Nepal government's response was that they have no choice but to prevent anti-Chinese protests in Kathmandu. Note that the interim Nepali government (which is using this excessive force) came to power following a massive protests against King Gyanendra in April 2006. Read the full report here.

UPDATE (3:22 p.m. March 20)

The Chinese government has admitted opening fire and wounding protesters during a protest in Sichuan protest last Sunday, according to Xinhua.

UPDATE (4:20 a.m.)
According to BBC, Chinese state media has reported that over 100 protesters in Lhasa have surrendered to secure leniency.

***Original Post***

When most westerners think of Tibet, they think of an exotic place, the Dalai Lama, monks in saffron robes, incense sticks, Buddhist art and what not. But this time, Tibet has become the most talked about international story in the media for a slightly different issue.

Violence continues to grow in Tibet and in India and Nepal (home to a large Tibetan refugee population) after thousands of Tibetans rallied around protesting against the Chinese government.

Read our earlier post about crackdown on Tibetan protesters in Kathmandu.

It has reached a point where the Dalai Lama has threatened to resign (from his role as political leader of the exiles, not his role as spiritual leader) if the violence goes out of control. Read Thomas Bell's report from Kathmandu. The BBC News has an article on if the Dalai Lama can resign from a position he was actually born into.

As Tibetans around the world continue to protest against the Chinese government, here is how some of the media around the world covering the news:

The Hindustan Times reports on how Indian MPs in Lok Sabha reacted to the Chinese crackdown;
The Telegraph, UK on tourists blaming Tibetans for attacking the Chinese;
Time magazine on a Tibetan refugee's tale;
Newsweek magazine on how the Chinese reaction to Lhasa protests could spill over into the Olympics;
The Washington Post on how Tibetans outside Lhasa are joining the protests;
Reuters on if the West is toning down on criticism of China over Tibet;
The Age on pro-Tibetan protesters hanging placards around the necks of Chinese Terracota Army at the British museum; Also, the Australian prime minister vows to talk to China about Tibet;
Xinhua on Chinese government's expectations from India to handle the Tibet issue;

I am seeing a variant of posts on the Tibet issue. Not quite sure about this one, but look how The Shanghai Daily published a couple of sentences calling Dalai Lama "a fake buddhist."

Also, here is a list of reactions to Tibet protests from leaders around the world.

Meanwhile, Dalai Lama is supposed to speak at Colgate University on April 22.

Please post your comments and links on the Tibetan issue.

SRI LANKA: NYT on Sri Lanka's escalating conflict

The situation in Sri Lanka seems to be getting worse and almost hopeless in recent days. Last week we wrote about the HRW report on the government's forced "disappearances" and abductions. In today's New York Times, Somini Sengupta writes that as the conflict escalates, Sri Lanka's ethnic division is becomes worse.

From the NYTimes:

There are no eyes on this war. A truce between the Sri Lankan government and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is over, and gone are the Nordic monitors who kept watch over it. <snip>

While it is impossible to gauge what is happening on the battlefield, that is where, it seems, the government has placed its bets to settle the long-running ethnic war, once and for all. As it does, the public mood in this country is more divided than in many years, like an old scratch that has festered into a gaping wound.

Note the part about enthusiasm among the Sinhalese and the lack thereof among young Tamils. The Sinhalese welcome the government's close offensive against young Tamils. And the Tamils do not have slightest of opportunity to express discontent over how they are treated by the security forces. This character in Sengupta's article shows how many Tamils live with fear:

S. Hariharasharma, 20, desperately searching for a sponsor to help him emigrate to Britain, recounted one incident, and it echoed the recollections of many young Tamils here.

MALDIVES: Attempt to murder President Gayoom

The Associated Press reports that a 15-year-old Boy Scout foiled an attempt to assassinate President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom during his visit to a small coral island, Hoarafushi, by grabbing the attacker's knife.

Report says that Gayoom was unhurt but the attacker managed to rip off his shirt when he made a second attempt to stab him.

    "Residents of the Maldives showered praise Wednesday on a 15-year-old Boy Scout who foiled an attempt to assassinate the president of this island nation by grabbing the attacker's knife.

    "Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim, wearing his blue Maldives scout uniform with a blue kerchief, was among those waiting to greet the leader Tuesday when the attacker lunged out from the crowd.<snip>

    "The attacker hid a knife in the Maldivian flag as he awaited Gayoom's arrival, then sprang toward the president, Shareef said. Ibrahim reached out and grabbed the blade, and he was cut on the hand, according to the government."

BBC News reports that Ibrahim said he acted out of his instinct.

The student said the incident happened so quickly that he did not have enough time to think about the risk he was taking.

His left hand was badly cut in the incident - for which he received hospital treatment in the capital, Male, before being discharged on Wednesday.

A number of newspapers in the islands have heaped praise on him as a hero for saving the president's life and many predict he will receive some kind of public award for his actions.

Maldives-based Miadhu News says that the presidential spokesperson has accused the opposition party, National Unity Alliance, for the assassination attempt.

In an interview given to Miadhu Daily yesterday, Mundhu said that there is a hand of the leaders of National Unity Alliance in this attempt. Mundhu questioned “Is this how those (National Unity Alliance) who left this island a few days ago depose President Gayoom by saying national unity? Should they do it by attacking him?”

But the spokesperson from the National Unity Alliance, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed has denied this accusation. In an interview given to Miadhu Daily, Dr. Shaheed said that National Unity Alliance was shocked to hear the stab attack on the President and said that he himself and the Alliance condemn this attack in strongest possible words.

Gayoom is Asia's longest serving leader, who was elected to office in November 1978.

Please post any updates or comments below.

MEDIA: "Man marries Dog" and other strange tales from India

Serious news organizations often run stories that have no impact on world affairs but merely showcase some of the zany things happening in far-flung corners of the earth. It’s fun to read about the man who was forced to marry a goat in Sudan — a somewhat tragic story since his goat-wife apparently died soon after when she choked on a piece of plastic — but when a Western media organization reports on the odd happenings in parts of the developing world, is there an implicit moral judgment?

India with its vast rural population is a source for many of these stories. Recently the BBC ran an article entitled “Man 'marries' dog to beat curse.” As promised, it celebrates the marriage of one P Selvakumar, a 33-year-old man, to a dog called Selvi in a village in Tamil Nadu. The marriage is intended to cure the groom of paralysis, which the villagers believe has resulted from his having killed dogs. And lest we forget, the Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai allegedly married a peepal tree and a banana tree in order to keep the faults in her horoscope from afflicting her human husband, actor Abhishek Bachchan. Furious feminists brought a lawsuit against Rai, claiming that tree-marriage is against the Indian constitution and that by assenting to such a “primitive” practice, Rai is holding back the cause of women’s rights in India.

PAKISTAN: More TV channels taken off the air

Press censorship in Pakistan has struck a new emotional chord as Geo TV and ARY, two popular independent news and opinion channels have been forced to end their Dubai-based satellite broadcasts by the United Arab Emirates Information Ministry. Shortly before midnight Pakistan time, Geo’s anchors choked up as they said the channel would be going dark. Because cable and terrestrial broadcasting in Pakistan is controlled by the government, satellite was the last opportunity to watch the channels, which have been unavailable domestically for about two weeks.

Geo’s website, www.geo.tv, is currently running a single story: “Musharraf Shuts Down Geo TV” (The text of the statement is also available from the Hindu.) It says that “informed sources” have stated that Gen. Pervez Musharraf himself had a role in shutting down Geo’s satellite broadcast and claims that "Geo News was shut down because it had refused to budge." According the statement, the government stopped advertising on Geo and pressured other advertisers to do the same, leading to 1 billion rupees (around 16 million US dollars) in losses for the channel. Despite the tremendous pressure, Geo never compromised its principles, it claims, and so the government had to act by taking it off the air entirely. The Pakistani government apparently asked authorities in Dubai to intervene, which they did.

IN THE NEWS: Calcutta in the Shadow of Mother Teresa

For many in the West, the only salient fact about Kolkata (Calcutta) is that Mother Teresa worked there. And so, many conclude it’s a wretched place, full of the sufferings of Hell made manifest on Earth. I have argued that stereotyping India is all too common in the West, even in Western reporting, but Calcutta as pure misery is by far the stereotype that we Westerners cling to the most.

As it happens, Kolkata is one of my favorite cities. It’s vibrant and brash and tumbling down on one’s head but also has a stateliness it owes to being a cultural center and the former capital of an empire—the historian Arnold Toynbee once wrote, “Calcutta looks like Pimlico [an upscale neighborhood in London] if you keep your line of vision tilted to the second storey.” I taught English there during the summer of 2004 and in my wanderings around the city found beauty, intellectual stimulation and friendship, but also the sad inequality that exists in every city. What can be shocking about Kolkata is not poverty itself but the contrast of mansions abutting slums, BMWs honking their way past rickshaws pulled by half-starved men, and on and on.

Mother Teresa (picture from Bettmann/Corbis) died this week ten years ago and the BBC’s Sanjoy Majumder reports that there was a prayerful commemoration in Kolkata. But despite her accolades, she is an incredibly polarizing figure in India. I had seen very little coverage of this controversy in Western newspapers until I came across a New York Times op-ed by Chitrita Banerji, who tries to reclaim her city from the Mother Teresa fixation the West tends to have. Banerji remembers the coverage of Mother Teresa’s funeral, with its descriptions of Kolkata that bore no relation to the city she remembers: “There was no mention of Calcutta's beautiful buildings and educated middle class, or its history of religious tolerance and its vibrant literary and cultural life.” That's my Calcutta as well.

SHOPPING: ABC Home Turns Into a "Gateway to India"

ABC Carpet & Home, a legendary NYC store, has had a whole month of India-related activities (Feb-16-March 14) and merchandise, under the banner of "Gateway to India." See descriptions of it here and see the full calendar of events here (pretty impressive lineup; this also ran in full page ads in the NYT, among other places). SAJA got involved, hosting a reading of "Planet India" by Mira Kamdar on Feb. 27, 2007. The event was sold out, with lots of folks new to SAJA in attendance. Our friends at SAMMA - South Asians in Media and Marketing - co-sponsored the event with us. Below are some images from the theater section, complete with on-the-ground seating, seen here before and after the talk. [ See other SAJAforum postings about Mira Kamdar.]

REPORTING: Farmer Suicide not witnessed by NY Times reporters

According to this report, New York Times reporters Somini Sengupta and Hari Kumar were not witnesses to a farmer suicide in rural Maharashtra, in India. This contradicts an earlier statement made by Kishore Tiwari, an activist who heads a group known as the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS). 

Tiwari had told IANS Thursday that a young farmer, Anil Shende, killed himself in his village Bhad-Umri in the Vidarbha region Wednesday in the presence of New York Times’ New Delhi bureau chief Somini Sengupta and reporter Hari Kumar.

He clarified Friday that the journalists had rushed to the village only after learning about the suicide.

SRI LANKA: Journalist killed outside Jaffna

Via Reporters Without Borders... Sinnathamby Sivamaharajah, the managing director of the Tamil-language daily Namathu Eelanadu (Our Eelam Nation), was shot dead in his home in the town of Tellippalai, 15 km from Jaffna. He'd run the paper since 2002 and had reportedly campaigned for the rights of displaced Tamils. According to the AP he was "a member of the Tamil National Alliance, a political party widely believed to be a proxy of the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels."

This is just the latest journalist to be killed in Sri Lanka. In early July, a 24-year-old Sinhalese reporter was killed in Colombo, and newspaper offices are regularly attacked, as are news vendors. According to Free Media Sri Lanka...

Barely a week ago a delivery agent cum driver of Jaffna based Uthayan news paper was shot dead. Three days ago two newsprint stores of Uthayan news paper was completely burned. If this tendency  is to continue unabated freedom to Information of people in Jaffna will be drastically reduced and freedom of expression will be curtailed.

IMMIGRATION: Illegals from India to the U.S.

The U.S. government released a report on Friday, Aug. 18, 2006, about illegal immigration, putting the estimated number of illegals at 11 million at the start of 2006. The full report, from the Office of Immigration Statistics in the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (the renamed INS) - in turn a part of the Department of Homeland Security - is available as a PDF here:
http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/publications/ILL_PE_2005.pdf.

While most illegal immigrants come from Mexico and other countries south of the border, the country with the highest percentage change is India, with a 133 percent growth in illegals between 2000 and 2005, the period covered by the report. India is #4 in the total numbers (after Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala), with no other South Asian country in the top 10 or mentioned in the seven-page report. India now accounts for about 3 percent of the illegal population.

India has 280,000 illegals in 2005, up from 120,000 in 2000, accounting for about 2.6 percent of the total, up from 1 percent. By contrast the percentage of U.S. citizens of Indian origin as a total of the U.S. population is less than 0.7 percent (if you count 2 million out of 300 million).

The top 10 countries are (with their 2005 and 2000 numbers):

• Mexico (5.9 million/4.6 million)
• El Salvador (470,000/430,000)
• Guatemala (370,000/290,000)
• India (280,000/120,000)
• China (230,000/190,000)
• Korea (210,000/180,000)
• Phillipines (210,000/200,000)
• Honduras (180,000/160,000)
• Brazil (170,000/100,000)
• Vietnam (160,000/160,000)

Interestingly, the opening lines of the report say:

Estimating the size of the unauthorized population living in the United States is challenging  because of data limitations. There are no national surveys, administrative data, or other sources  of information that directly provide accurate estimates of this population. As a consequence, the  unauthorized immigrant population must be estimated by making certain assumptions and by  combining data that measure events with those that measure populations.

Here are links to some stories on this topic.

Do you have a reaction to this? Know of further analysis? If so, please use post in the comments section below. Requires one-time, free registration. After that, you never need to register on SAJAforum.org again!

[Thanks to Sendhil Revuluri for help with some of the calculations for this story.]