Following the sad events of UCLA and the shooting of Professor Klug by a person of Indian origin, who is also an immigrant we might unfortunately see a backlash against Indians and the Indian community more precisely against Indian immigrants.  According to the Hindustan Times:

The gunman who killed University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) professor William Klug was on Thursday identified as 38-year-old Indian student Mainak Sarkar.
In 2000, Sarkar graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology-Kharagpur with a degree in aerospace engineering.
“Mainak was a brilliant student. He remained busy with studies and did not talk or socialise much. As far as I remember, he was from Kolkata,” a professor of aerospace department of IIT-Kharagpur, who was not authorised to speak to the media, told HT.
According to his online profile, Sarkar worked for Infosys in Bengaluru from 2000 to 2001 before going to the US…

Mainak is a unfortunately also an Indian IT immigrant who came to the United States and ultimately did well but unfortunately in his case, something went awfully wrong.  He believed that his intellectual property work was being stolen. We need to point out that many people have actually complained before about their work being stolen by others in the United States.  However, the remedy is to file a lawsuit not to go on a killing spree!

Unfortunately for some people especially some politicians who are anti-immigration or clearly anti-Indian, this might be a chance to crack down on people who are coming from India. We can only hope that the event will not actually create a backlash for Indians especially Indian immigrants. In the recent years we have unfortunately seen a bunch of attacks and discrimination moves towards people from India including physical attacks.  Indirectly,  we have seen denials of entry in the United States, closing down of schools such as UNNJ and unfair denials of H1B visas. More recently the government is planning to deny non-citizens to be admitted on certain sensitive research conducted by Universities and other entities based on security reasons. Now we are worried just like the murder of the San Francisco women, some bigoted politicians might be using this sad and tragic incident as a tool to put the blame on immigration and immigrants.

First of all the fact that the shooter was of Indian origin does not in anyway justify believing that all Indian immigrants are “criminals” Second, there are at least 100 death in the United States per day based on gun shots.  Mainak crime is only 1% of those who die daily by guns.  Therefore, anybody who tries to blame this on immigration and immigrants will definitely get it wrong.

We call on all to actually not only to denounce the crime but also to avoid pointing fingers towards one community just like it is now being done in San Francisco against Hispanics.

Our videos and podcast below cover an analysis of this problem. Please do not confuse crimes with immigration and immigrant communities.

Share

Written by admin

Shah Peerally is an attorney licensed in California practicing immigration law and debt settlement. He has featured as an expert legal analyst for many TV networks such as NDTV, Times Now and Sitarree TV. Articles about Shah Peerally and his work have appeared on newspapers such as San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, US Fiji Times, Mauritius Le Quotidien, Movers & Shakers and other prominent international newspapers. His work has been commended by Congress women Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Lee. He has a weekly radio show on KLOK 1170AM and frequently participates in legal clinics in churches, temples and mosques. His law group, Shah Peerally Law Group, has represented clients all over the United States constantly dealing with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Immigration and Custom Enforcement(ICE) and CBP (Customs Border Patrol (CBP) under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This department was formerly known as the Immigration and Nationality Services (INS).