Immigration News

New NAM Column To Cover Immigrants Who Have Disappeared

After spending over eight years in limbo in a California detention center without access even to a bail hearing, Harpal Singh, a Sikh, desperately chooses to be deported back to India where he had been tortured years before. Why?

Harpal Singh’s story marks the debut of “Disappeared in America,” a new, regular column in New America Media’s website. It will profile some of the people lost in the post-9/11 national security system and show how the issue cuts across all immigrant groups.

Immigrant detainees are the fastest growing prison population in America. Cases of people languishing in indefinite detention or deported under questionable circumstances have increased exponentially since 9/11.

They have disappeared from their daily lives and jobs as taxi drivers, store owners, neighbors, fathers and students, due to homeland security measures or harsher immigration law enforcement. This is the missing story in the heated immigration debate.

“This column is a coming together of those in the frontlines of this issue – ethnic media and immigration advocacy groups,” says Sandy Close, executive editor of New America Media.

The idea of the column came out of a gathering of ethnic media editors and publishers in Los Angeles, who were struck by the commonality of the stories of immigrants grappling with the Department of Homeland Security. These editors and publishers can use the column in their own media.

New America Media will tap ethnic media and immigration advocacy groups around the country to uncover more stories of ordinary people gone missing in America.

“The series will draw attention to the individual and put a human face to some of the larger trends of the immigration and detention system,” says Camille Taiara, editor for Disappeared in America.

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