As’Salaamu Alaikum Community Members,
As we begin an important electoral year, CAIR-SFBA’s Legal Team would like to wish you a blessed start to the year surrounded by the grace of Allah and of family and friends. We would also like to thank all of you, donors, supporters, and our clients for continuing to entrust us with the work of defending civil rights.
This month, in a foreshadowing of the continuation of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies, CAIR-SFBA’s Immigrants’ Rights Attorney, Amir Naim, challenged United States Citizenship and Immigration Service’s (USCIS) extensive delay in determining the eligibility for an immigration benefit on behalf of one of our community members. Amir filed a writ of mandamus in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. This last resort measure, as a last resort, petitioning the court to order a government official such as the Director of USCIS to properly fulfill their official duties or correct an abuse of discretion. The client, an individual of Uighur origin, has been awaiting a response to her naturalization application, having applied in 2017 and only receiving a set of interviews in 2019 with USCIS adjudicators. Ordinarily, USCIS officers are required to adjudicate naturalization applications within four months of filing, yet large numbers of community members from Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian (AMEMSA) communities often experience significant delays, sometimes even lasting years.
In this case and others, CAIR-SFBA’s Immigrants’ Rights attorneys have represented various individuals of Uighur Muslim origin in a number of capacities, including in addition to this writ filing, asylum applications. Uighurs are a religious minority in China’s autonomous Xinjiang province, which borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, and is home to about 10 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. Members of the Uighur community in China have been targeted through an over-broad, anti-Muslim program of “de-extremification” which includes measures such as banning of certain Muslim names for babies, torture, and political indoctrination in ominously named “reeducation camps” aimed at erasing religious identity under the guise of counter-radicalism.
Amongst the impacted have been Uighurs studying in the United States on student visas, who are often fearful of being targeted by the Chinese government if they choose to speak out against the human rights abuses and the detention of their own family members in reeducation camps. Some Uighur students are also fearful of returning home to visit their families, concerned that they would not be allowed to return to the U.S. to finish their studies.
If you or a family member find yourself in need of legal consultations regarding naturalization application, adjustment of status petitions, asylum, and refugee petitions as well as general inquiries about the impact of the Muslim Ban on yourself or your loved ones, please reach out to our Immigrants’ Rights Program through our immigration assistance form. Also, note, we will be hosting our next Immigration Clinic on Friday, March 6 at the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara. You can find additional information about it here.
Thank you for your continued support, enabling our work to protect the community.
Sincerely,
Ammad Rafiqi, Esq.
Civil Rights & Legal Services Coordinator