NYU Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights Blog

Crimmigration Under a New Administration

by

Allison Argueta /
Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project / 
California, USA / 

My name is Allison Argueta Claros and I’m a second-year student at Gallatin studying public policy, journalism, and migration studies with a focus in Latin America and the Caribbean. This summer I will be working as an intern in a community education program sponsored by the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project.

Esperanza is a nonprofit legal organization that has been empowering immigrants through education and legal representation for about ten years. Esperanza provides legal services to immigrants in detention, unaccompanied minors, and individuals with complex immigration cases involving a criminal history.

I am particularly interested in the case of those who have a criminal record due to crimmigration, a term that denotes how immigration law and enforcement has become so enmeshed with criminal law provisions. Crimmigration became increasingly apparent starting in the 1980s when immigration laws became more punitive. Notably, in 1996, the Department of Homeland Security greatly expanded the definition of aggravated felony, a conviction unique to immigration law that can lead to deportation. Crimes of moral turpitude, which include offenses seen as base, vile, or depraved, are also grounds for deportation.

My interest was born from my study of migration narratives, where a recurring narrative arose: the good immigrant vs. bad immigrant. The “good immigrant” is clearly defined: educated, skillful, young, and most importantly, exceptional. The definition for the “bad” or “undeserving” immigrant tends to be more ambiguous, and it tends to get applied to a larger number of immigrants.

Obama’s “Felons, Not Families” era of deportation facilitated more deportations, family separation, and a stronger conception of the “bad” immigrant. During Trump’s presidency, the “bad immigrant” became synonymous with nearly anyone who does not appear “American,” and immigrants were automatically deemed a threat to national security.

Hailing from a predominantly immigrant community and a mixed-status family,  discussions about deportation are commonplace in my environment, but discussions about resources to ensure legal representation are not. According to the American Immigration Council, only 37 percent of all immigrants and a mere 14 percent of detained immigrants secure legal representation. Without legal counsel, immigrants often have a slim chance of success, especially if they have a criminal record.

This summer, I hope to better understand the ways that the court system treats immigrants and to observe if the deportation machine will perhaps slow down under a new administration.

COVID-19 and Housing in New York

by

Leo Zhu /
Upstate Downstate Housing Alliance /
New York, USA / 

My name is Leo Zhu and I am a rising junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, studying urban design and architecture with minors in law and society and Chinese. As an undergraduate student studying urban design and architecture with a developing interest in public interest law, I’m looking forward to supplementing my academic and career endeavors with firsthand experience in legal research and social involvement this summer.

I will be working with Upstate Downstate Housing Alliance (UDHA), an organization deeply committed to promoting public interest in securing housing rights for economically and socially marginalized groups.  The UDHA is a coalition of over one hundred organizations that share the common goal of eliminating homelessness throughout New York State and providing stable and affordable housing for those in need.

Although I would consider myself a relative newcomer to the field of human rights, being that I have only recently shifted from a focus on economics and business, I have learned quite a bit about the various debates and interconnections within the human rights discussion through my seminar with Professor Nesiah. This summer, I hope to apply all that I’ve learned to my work with the UDHA and have a meaningful experience.housing activists wearing orange shirts and clappingInadequate housing has been a prominent issue all throughout history. As a result of recent events–namely, the onset of the coronavirus pandemic–it has been especially exacerbated. Many housing organizations have campaigned fiercely for tenant and homelessness relief, but forms of legal redress such as eviction moratoriums have been temporary and have required repeated mobilization. Present circumstances aside, safe and stable housing is a human right that everyone deserves to enjoy, not only during a global pandemic.

At the UDHA, I will work directly under the lead coordinator and organizer for their Housing Justice for All campaign. I will conduct legal research and draw analyses of New York State housing policies on behalf of the organization, mainly in preparation for the 2022 State Legislative session, where this data will be used for proposals for legislative reform.

I will also work as a communications intern, managing the coalition’s internal communications between its 100+ organizations, and I will coordinate and implement external outreach initiatives targeted at people and groups outside UDHA, using email, social media, and other remote communication strategies.

As I approach the beginning of this internship experience, I’m really looking forward to being able to observe how the coalition’s separate organizations operate together and mobilize under one collective mission.

Me, and the Summer Ahead

by

Mahima Sharda / 
International Crisis Group /
New York, USA / 

My name is Mahima Sharda, and I’m originally from Jaipur in India. Growing up there, I saw first-hand the challenges faced by women when struggling to be fully included and recognized in society. In addition to physical or sexual violence, women face strong cultural norms that hinder their ability to be treated equally to their male counterparts–at home, at school, or in the office. Equal participation in all aspects of society is a human right, whether that means access to employment, fair pay, safety, or information.

group of women in pink saris
The Gulabi Gang

It is for this reason that I wanted to focus on the intersection of women, peace, and security at the International Crisis Group (ICG) this summer, as part of the Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights. I want to find tangible ways of advancing women’s rights in countries where the gender gap is particularly large.

To this end, I will be working on three projects at the ICG. First, I will be conducting academic research on the plight of female refugees and matriarchs in the Middle East. I will also be working with ICG to measure and document the tangible impacts of their work on public policy decision-making. And, finally, I will be critically evaluating the think tank’s approach to gender-related topics from a human rights perspective, comparing it to current theory and thought leadership.

ICG logo
International Crisis Group

In addition to my academic understanding of this subject matter, which I gained through the fellowship, I hope to bring my professional experience to the ICG. I want to draw connections between this role and the ones I have held previously at the UNDP in India and at the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the UN here in New York.

New Norms That Influence Much Needed Change

by

Stephanie Holguin / 
Reconoci.do & We Are All Dominican /
Dominican Republic & USA (New York) / 

As the month of August comes to a close with a new season closely upon us, I am left reflecting on all that has transpired the past summer. The pandemic continues to affect our everyday interactions on a global scale, taking along with it many lives and leaving uncertainty for our future. In the same breath, I think of all the sustained uprisings that have taken place not only in the U.S. but globally, showing solidarity for the Black Lives Matter Movement and the unacceptable, unjust killing of George Floyd at the hands of police. The many lives lost at the hands of police.

In the past few months, I’ve been able to assist Reconoci.do and We Are All Dominican with several different initiatives that have uplifted the voices of many Dominicans of Haitian descent. This was done while combating anti-Haitian, xenophobic, and nationalist rhetoric, which surged with the transitioning presidential party and global protests. Both movements were able to host a series of virtual conversations geared towards the awareness of how current unjust state policies affect the lives of Black Dominicans of Haitian descent.

There are hopes that the newly elected President will bring about much-needed change. This September marks the seventh year since the passing of the Dominican Constitutional Tribunal’s ruling 168‐13, which rendered statelessness for about four generations of people. This year is especially important for the many who continue to fight for the state’s recognition of their legal identification documents, as well as the earlier generations who helped to build upon this state.

While this fellowship has come to an end, the work still continues. In the upcoming months, I will work alongside both partnerships and other activists to build community through workshops and ongoing virtual conversations. I am grateful for the opportunity both organizations have been able to provide me, and I’ve learned so much throughout the process.

In the present day, we have seen the ways in which injustices shape our society. Collectively, we must continue to fight and dismantle systems that prevent equal and just rights for everyone.

Prison Abolition and Transformative Justice: Reflecting on the Future

by

Brian Ruiz (he/him/they/them) /
Radical Love Consciousness (RLC) /
New York, USA /

My time with Radical Love Consciousness (RLC) this summer was reflective. I found myself with more questions than answers about the state of organizing within the prison abolition (PA) and transformative justice (TJ) movements. Originally, before this disastrous and unexpected pandemic, RLC and I wanted to do in-person popular learning sessions related to PA and TJ. However, plans changed, and we restructured our learning sessions to do them remotely. Our intent was to focus on how these workshops could incorporate the arts, direct organizing through mutual aid, and accessibility. Since then, learning sessions are still being edited. 

Unfortunately, this summer brought forth the tragic continuation of systematic and interpersonal violence towards Black, Indigenous, disabled, and queer bodies through forms of policing, surveillance, and incarceration, thus upholding the erasure and oppression of marginalized folx. With the PA movement seeking to dismantle these struggles, it is essential to think about the collectives and/or individuals who are creating safe, sustainable, autonomous, and accountable communities and spaces that seek to further Black and Indigenous liberation. This liberation must additionally center those who are femme, trans, non-binary, disabled, incarcerated, and survivors. The reality is that these folx are often overlooked in the movement, which preserves the police culture and abuser-protective, ablist, and heteronormative culture within the movement.

The biggest takeaway was understanding roles within the PA and TJ movement. Roles of folxs vary throughout this movement: being on the front lines as protesters in the streets, facilitating popular learning sessions, creating various forms of art, establishing communal mutual aid, leading healing circles, starting self-defense initiatives, offering reparations (an ongoing process), taking time to rest, and more. RLC taught me a valuable lesson about how roles are meant to change over time as we understand the spaces we are a part of and what we can contribute.

I am honored and greatly appreciate having worked and learned with RLC on an intimate level. They are folxs who I share a strong kinship with. This is not a farewell to the work with RLC, but more so a let’s continue to evolve and support one another to ensure we cultivate the community we want–a community that is accountable, healing, and sustainable. I hope folx can continue to support grassroots organizers and organizations and directly impacted folx such as survivors and incarcerated people in this movement.

Detainee rights and further questions

by

Esther Choo /
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) /
NYC, USA /

After working remotely the past few months and reflecting on various human rights issues, I found myself asking more questions of “why”: why is this specific issue happening; why is it crucial to include it in our conversations; why are we approaching this issue now; why isn’t anyone recognizing it or doing more about it, etc.

Personally, I think it was to check (almost reassure) and make sure I understood the issues that we were tackling, but also because I often found myself bogged down by details if I wasn’t asking questions along the way. As we sifted through many archives and analyzed reports of egregious yet normalized abusive language and actions, I’d remind myself of the bigger picture: contribute to identifying human right violations and advocate for the dismantlement of detrimental norms.

Reflecting on our primary work, it has been baffling to see detention centers continuously retaliate and blatantly disregard the rights of detainees. Media exposure of the squalid conditions and gross treatment brings back fundamental questions about why people are being detained in the first place. And, particularly during a global pandemic, why is it our automatic reaction to contain individuals and subject them to torture and cruel treatment? It’s become alarmingly standardized behavior, and now is the critical time to be working on these human rights issues. So, for next steps, after recognizing specific abuses in U.S. detention centers, how can we further address and advocate for detainee rights that are being violated?

Last week was my final week at PHR, and I’m thinking back to all the valuable discussions the team had. It has been and continues to be a process of learning and unlearning, and this experience has opened up how I see human rights advocacy and my potential place in it. I hope I can continue to ask questions and fuel that future role.

Black August: Remembrance and a Call to Action

by

Dylan Brown (he/him/his) /
Rikers Public Memory Project & Critical Resistance /
USA /

As the summer of 2020 comes to a close, police violence against Black people continues to ravage the world. Yet, for as long as Black people have been in the United States, we have rebelled against a white supremacist, settler-colonial state that has sought to ensure our premature death through policy, policing, and imprisonment. As we live through a period of sustained uprising, we are witnessing an unsettling of racist systems, practices, and institutions that are accustomed to being above reproach, protected by the normalization of violence and the disposability of Black people. 

In this historic moment, it is important to situate the summer 2020 uprisings within the historical lineage of Black freedom struggles in the Americas. For instance, this month we celebrate Black August, a time in which we honor Black freedom fighters, many of whom were killed by the state or were imprisoned for defending Black lives. Black August is a call for reflection, self-sacrifice, disciplined political practice, education, and action in service of Black liberation and revolutionary struggles everywhere across the African Diaspora. Black August was first celebrated in the 1970s in prisons across California and is tied to the life, work, and death of imprisoned radical intellectual George Jackson.   

In Soledad Brother, a collection of Jackson’s letters from prison, he writes:

“After one concedes that racism is stamped unalterably into the present nature of Amerikan sociopolitical and economic life in general (the definition of fascism is: a police state wherein the political ascendancy is tied into and protects the interests of the upper class—characterized by militarism, racism, and imperialism), and concedes further that criminals and crime arise from material, economic, sociopolitical causes, we can then burn all of the criminology and penology libraries and direct our attention where it will do some good.”

Jackson’s writings are a mandate to build and sustain a revolution that rejects every component of our white supremacist world order. As we honor Jackson and the rich history of the Black radical tradition, I find myself reflecting on what it means to dedicate your life to the movement. More specifically, what does it mean to dedicate your life to opposing a state that is not afraid to use every weapon at its disposal to kill and silence you? How do you care for yourself and manage to keep organizing and resisting in the face of so much tragedy? How do you relentlessly work for freedom for decades on end without burning yourself out?

Jackson describes how one can “discover your humanity and your love in revolution.” This summer pushed me in every way imaginable. I was tired, angry, depressed, and at some times simply a mess. Nearly every week, I found myself bombarded by new instances of Black death. However, by engaging in meaningful work and forging new connections with organizers, cultural workers, and creatives at both Critical Resistance and the Rikers Public Memory Project, I found that I was able to re-discover my own love of revolutionary work. I feel grateful to have been able to work with both of these organizations this summer, and I will continue to support and be involved in their work.

The Importance of Free Expression in the COVID-19 Era

by

Erin O’Brien /
PEN America /
New York, NY /

As my work with PEN America has continued and as the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to ravage the world, one thing has become increasingly clear: the pandemic, like most afflictions and systems, operates on the systems and hierarchies already in place in our world. This is demonstrated in manifold ways: in the racial disparity of the disease’s deadly effects (acting on racist and white supremacist global systems), in the countries where it has been deadliest (acting on authoritarian systems), and, for my work, in the authoritarian tendencies it has strengthened (silencing dissent and being used as a means of cementing fascist and authoritarian rule).

COVID-19 has become a central means of silencing and attacking dissidents around the world. In China, those who have spoken out against the government’s handling of the virus have been arrested or have disappeared. In Iran, political prisoners such as Nasrin Sotoudeh are being kept in dire crowded conditions and are refused medical care despite the disease’s spread. In Turkey, protests in the capital city, Ankara, have been banned for alleged fear of the virus spreading, but bars and restaurants remain open. Around the world, political prisoners’ court dates and hearings are being indefinitely postponed due to the virus, and writers and activists remain indefinitely behind bars.

It has been fascinating (and terrifying) to watch this play out through my work at PEN. What is supposed to be a “great equalizer”–a disease–has in fact solidified the corrupted systems that were already present in the world. Non-biological characteristics such as party affiliation, chosen career, activist position, and religious affiliation have had distinctly deterministic and biological effects. For example, in Iran, if you are an imprisoned dissident or a human rights activist, your chance of dying from the coronavirus skyrockets. Or, if you are imprisoned for a petty crime in the U.S., you’ve got a more than 20% chance of getting sick.

I’m still grappling with and processing all of this. It’s certainly discouraging and disheartening, to say the least, that the corrupt systems controlling the world can be strengthened and upheld by the most non-political thing of all: a disease. But I think it has also made me reflect and realize that nothing is free of racism, or fascism, or corruption. It has made me interrogate the many aspects of all of our lives that can be affected by these hierarchies and systems, and has made me aware that even the most seemingly innocuous things can support corrupt systems.

Necropolitical Underdevelopment in Syria

by

John Jamil Kallas (he/him) /
Salon Syria /
Beirut, Lebanon /

As the conditions suffered by the Syrian people have continually been exacerbated by the local, regional, and global ruling classes for the past decade, one cannot help but reflect on the inevitability of death. What does it mean to live in a land of constant suffering? And, more importantly, what does it mean to avoid death by one weapon when there are dozens more charging to strike the final blow?

No one was left untouched by the war in Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the war and even more were displaced both internally and externally. Those who were able to continue living in their homes had to sit idly by and watch their country descend into ruin by a mix of forces they had no involvement with or control over, leaving them subject to the whims of whoever held the most power over their area. Of course, the physical violence of war—guns, bombs, etc., —eventually died down as the Syrian government slowly reaffirmed their control over most of the country. Of course, as Walter Rodney has documented in his history of Africa, violence becomes a presupposition for underdevelopment in the Third World. That is when the country truly begins to die.

The allegedly “post-war” reconstruction of Syria was not focused on rebuilding homes, hospitals, and infrastructure. Instead, the Syrian government, in their continued coordination with the Syrian bourgeoisie, focused their reconstruction efforts specifically on revitalizing the Syrian economy in service of the rich to maintain the state’s FIRE economy while leaving the poor and displaced floating in water alone. Underdevelopment, however, has not just been a domestic process in Syria. The global economy has been weaponized by the Western world powers against Syrians, as it has been used against Iraqis, Iranians, Cubans, and many others in the Third World, as a way to exacerbate their suffering by way of sanctions.

Working at Salon Syria has allowed me to read on and develop my own analysis on the current situation in the country. At the same time, hearing about the conditions of my own family in the country has allowed me to ground that analysis in the reality of my people, making it clear that the suffering of Syrians in the country has been the product of imperialist violence and insufficient domestic governance. Initially, the sanctions caused intense famine throughout the country, and food became more and more scarce as access to equipment required to develop and reconstruct Syrian agricultural infrastructure was cut off. The national economy suffered doubly alongside the global economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the suffering feels as if it has reached a climax; COVID-19 has been spreading like wildfire in Syria, and the conditions of a destructive war, poorly allocated reconstruction, and international sanctions have converged into a truly devastating situation. Hospitals, few and far between, have little access to the technology they need to handle a pandemic, and even COVID-19 tests are not available in Syria due to the sanctions.

In Syria, if you survive militaristic violence, you might die from the violence of displacement. Even if you are able to stay in your home during the war, you might lose your job and starve due to an economy and reconstructive efforts that take no consideration for the working class. If you are able to feed yourself, you might still lack access to life-saving technology that could help you survive the pandemic.

It is clear that the situation in Syria is one that has been underdeveloped in an interesting way, as much of the Middle East, especially Iraq, has experienced in recent years. Syrian labor in Syria does not profit the local, regional, or global ruling classes. What is profitable is control over the area of Syria and its government. Underdevelopment has been designed to control not Syrians but the body of Syria itself. Thus, the situation in Syria is a necropolitical one; it has not only constructed the rigid conditions that decide one’s death but also makes premature death almost inevitable for all but the ruling class of Syrians.

Some Thoughts During Isolation and Unrest

by

Nithya Reddy /
Gender at Work /
India /

Months of being inside and remote working brings an uncomfortable need for introspection. While helping Gender at Work for this fellowship, I kept asking myself why I was compelled towards this particular subject, that being woman and work. Why I threw myself into learning and helping people with experiences vastly different from mine as I stood from a place of privilege in the United States. I approach my role as a Human Rights Fellow with hesitation because I spent much of my life and college career on the other side.

My understanding of the terms, “economic liberation” and “financial independence,” were initially filtered through the lens of my immigrant parents and business school. To them, the ability to afford luxury goods was the reward for years and years of hard work. Coming to the United States meant opportunities for more money. I went along with their binary vision for my future: medical school or business school, both with guaranteed, giant incomes. I chose business school because I was too lazy for med school and too naive to understand what attending business school meant.

I was raised to believe and let myself believe that money is the solution. The world revolves around this romanticization of the free market and makes money, something that can never hold real value, the center of the human experience. Without money, there cannot be liberation or independence. In my application for the Human Rights Fellowship, I defiantly claimed that “women suffer daily abuse and are helplessly dependent” without financial independence. While women do suffer abuse, though, giving them new means of employment and income does not serve as the solution.

I have learned through both Professor Vasuki’s seminar and my time at Gender at Work that there is no singular solution to the systematic oppression of women, especially in India. This oppression has been in place for centuries and is a combination of both market and state mechanisms. Academics have been writing about the causes, and news outlets have been reporting their effects for years, but there has been no tangible change in the second-class status of women in India. Truthfully, I feel more and more dejected every time I read a new research paper or study for my fellowship.

My parents pushing me towards a reliable source of income was their reaction to the systems in place in India. My mother tells me that it was her mother who encouraged her to come to the United States and pursue a well-paying job. The fight for survival, unfortunately, includes the need for money. My rejection of this notion reflects a further sense of privilege, as many women need work to survive.

There is no proper conclusion for this post. I have been through a process of learning and unlearning that probably will end with more confusion and guilt. But, what I do know is that I will never be able to define the needs and wants of these women who live across the world from me. All I can do is work alongside them and help them fight for their own agency to construct the lives they desire.