California governor signs anti-bullying bill vs Muslims and Sikhs

IN THE DAYS before his deadline for signing bills into law, California's Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill AB-2845, anti-bullying legislation also known as the Safe Place to Learn Act. Current anti-bullying laws that cite bullying due to race or ethnicity will now include bullying due to "religious affiliation" to the list of reasons bullying might occur. 

Authored by Assemblymember Das Williams, this bill works to address the growing problem of bullying and discrimination based on religious affiliation or perceived religious affiliation. 

AB 2845 will provide certificated staff at local education agencies with school site and community resources for students who are subject to discrimination and bullying based on actual or perceived religious affiliation. The bill also requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to post anti-bullying resources related to affiliation or perceived affiliation with any religious group on its website.

RELATED: Report - U.S. hate groups increase as campaign rhetoric incite anger and fear

"[This bill] is very important to Muslim and Sikh children because both of our communities have seen a huge rise in the bullying of Muslim and perceived to be Muslim students," Saad Sweilem, civil rights attorney at CAIR-Sacramento Valley (CAIR-SV), told NBC News. "Students from both communities played an instrumental role in getting this bill passed by testifying in front of Assemblymembers about their own personal experiences being bullied. 

"Our hope is that this bill provides our schools the resources they need so that they are prepared to handle these types of situations. Because of our current social and political climate, this issue is a major one and we're very hopeful that this bill will tackle it head on."

According to CAIR-CA, 55 percent of American Muslim students attending California public schools surveyed experience some form of bullying based on their religious identity. This is twice as high as the national statistic for students who report being bullied at school.

"Our schools should be able to provide our children education in an environment that is free from identity based blame and bullying," says Sameena Usman, CAIR-SFBA Government Relations Coordinator.

Similarly, the Sikh Coalition has reported that 50 percent of Sikh students have encountered school bullying. This number increases significantly for turbaned Sikh students, 67 percent of whom have encountered bullying. In Fresno, 51 percent of the students surveyed by the Sikh Coalition reported that they felt school officials did not respond adequately to bullying incidents.

The statistics reflect the national trend of growing Islamaphobia, encouraged by the heated rhetoric used by the Republican candidate for president Donald Trump and his followers.

"The right to attend public school free from bullying and discrimination is a civil right. AB 2845 will help ensure that no child has to compromise their faith or identity in California schools," said Harjit Kaur, Community Development Manager for the Sikh Coalition.

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BuzzFeed: U.S. crackdown on undocumented Sikh immigrants

The U.S. Army changed dress policies to allow male Sikh members to retain their turbans and beards.

ONE OF the many stories mainstream media has not reported on is the deportation of undocumented immigrants from India.

The U.S. government has moved quietly and aggressively to prevent undocumented Indians from entering the United States, many of whom are Sikhs fleeing political repression or economic collapse at home.

This unnoticed phenomenon is exposed in a pretty comprehensive article by David Noriega and Jonn Templon of BuzzFeed News entitled "America's Quiet Crackdown On Indian Immigrants."

The number of Indian nationals caught trying to cross the southern border into the U.S. exploded suddenly in 2010, growing sixfold to 1,200 from just over 200 the year prior.

Although the number has oscillated since then, it has remained near an all-time high. And that includes only those caught trying to cross undetected, leaving out Buta Singh and others like him — thousands, mostly young men, who walk up to a border crossing, turn themselves in, and plead asylum. The total number of Indian nationals who tried to enter the U.S. without papers, including through airports and other points of entry, also spiked in the last five years, peaking at close to 13,000 in 2013, more than double the number in 2009.

Much of this influx, according to dozens of interviews with immigrants, experts, and current and former immigration officials, comes from young Indian men at the border, ferried there by transnational smuggling networks. Although border authorities do not track the religious or regional origins of migrants, government officials and other observers say that large numbers of the new arrivals are Sikhs from Punjab, a region in northwestern India beset by economic collapse and environmental degradation, a major drug epidemic, and decades of what human rights groups describe as political violence carried out with impunity.

While the article follows one man's journey from India to the United States, it is a well-worn path that thousands -- not only from India but also Pakistan, China and from the Middle East  -- have apparently followed.

BuzzFeed News

The U.S. immigration enforcement apparatus has responded harshly to these new arrivals. Before the spike, only about a quarter of Indian nationals were detained at the beginning of their deportation hearings. But, according to federal data analyzed for the first time by BuzzFeed News, that percentage shot up dramatically around 2010, coinciding with the rise in Indian nationals at the border.

In 2013, 83% of Indians facing deportation were imprisoned — a far larger percentage than for immigrants from any other country, including Mexico, which had the highest overall rate of detention between 2003 and 2014. (BuzzFeed News obtained the data through a Freedom of Information Act request from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, or EOIR, the branch of the Justice Department that operates the country’s immigration courts.)

Read the complete article.

For more news about Asian/Americans and Pacific Islanders, read AsAm News.