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Contributions from Subhash Kateel

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Care is the Core of Change | Subhash Kateel

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Yesterday, an old colleague from the immigrant rights movement, B. Loewe wrote a thought provoking piece on self-care titled, "An End to Self Care."After I read the piece, I told him how hard it was to not have an immediate and viscerally negative reaction to it. After we spoke, I realized that some of my reaction was based more on what I thought he was saying than what he was actually saying. But other parts of my reaction felt valid enough for me to respond to the piece.
People holding a banner that says Obama Stop Deporting Dreamers

The Supreme Court’s SB1070 decision: When losers claim victory and victors are too used to losing

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To be part of the immigrant rights movement is to really understand loss and losing in the deepest sense. Attending some sort of funeral, having friends and family that are in this country one day and permanently exiled the next, watching parents break down in tears in the last five minutes of a detention center visit and asking yourself, "is that really legal" multiple times after documenting an ICE raid are all collateral consequences of a broken system and the fight against it. I even get tired ofrepeating the same, still relevant points, about an emerging apartheid state in articles I write every couple of years, because things always seem to get predictably worse.
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Subhash: Will Marissa Alexander Do 20 Years for Standing Her Ground Against an Abuser?

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While Florida is still raw from the death of Trayvon Martin, a new incident of injustice may be unfolding a few hours away in Jacksonville, Florida, the home district of Angela Corey, the "special" prosecutor in Trayvon's case. In a slight twist of irony, the "stand your ground" (or more properly " justifiable use of force") statutes are also being invoked in this case, except by an alleged victim of domestic violence that says she was defending herself against an abusive husband.
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None of us are winning, yet by Subhash Kateel

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I just finished reading Sally Kohn’s piece in the American Prospect titled Follow No Leader that outlines her criticism of the Occupy Wall Street(for a good explanation of the action check out this Voices from the Frontline Occupy Wall Street protests). Now, I know Sally to be thoughtful and articulate. I am especially proud of her courage being in the Fox News studios going head to head with the Michelle Malkin’s of the world. That respect made her article even more curious to me. In the article she basically reduces the Occupy Wall Street protests to “making noise for its own sake,” and cites a New York Times writer, Ginia Bellafante, who accuses Occupy Wall Street of “pantomiming (maybe I am dumb, but I had to look that word up to make sure I knew what it meant) progressivism rather than practicing it.” Sally even seems to co-sign the Times writers’ characterization of the protestors as hippies and anarchists.
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Kateel: Obama’s Immigration Move

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Thursday felt like time for a toast for America’s largest social movement, the folks fighting for immigrant rights. With the news that the Obama administration would review many of its pending 300,000 deportation cases and allow some of those with no “criminal” record to stay, you could literally hear the cries of joy jumping out of Facebook updates, twitter feeds, cafecito spots (I live in Miami), college campuses, and even a detention center or two.
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Diminishing Returns on Anti-Immigrant Politics

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Drawing from over ten years of experience in organizing detainees and building fighting organizations for immigrant rights, Subhash Kateel looks at some of the past weaknesses of the immigrant rights movement. He also puts forward some sites where the immigrant rights movement is making significant advances.