On Friday, May 19, CAIR-Columbus Legal Director Romin Iqbal, gave a presentation at the annual spring meeting of the Ohio Management Lawyers Association (“OMLA”) on issues relating to providing religious accommodations for Muslims in the workplace.
In March 2017, CAIR-Columbus filed a mandamus lawsuit in federal court in Columbus on behalf of 10 Somali refugees whose green card applications had been pending for almost 3 years without adjudication.
See: CAIR-Columbus Files Immigration Delay Lawsuits
“We are happy to announce that since the filing in March, we were able to obtain green cards for 6 of the ten plaintiffs in the case, and expect the other four plaintiffs will be receiving their green cards soon as well,” said Executive Director Jennifer Nimer.
On Thursday, May 11 at Capital University Law School from 6-8pm join CAIR-Columbus, the ACLU of Ohio, Ohio Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and the American Constitution Society – Columbus Lawyer Chapter for this timely CLE program. (Two hours of CLE credit pending approval from Supreme Court of Ohio.) Featuring Romin Iqbal, Jennifer Nimer, and Amna Akbar.
CAIR-Columbus announced today that is has filed another lawsuit against USCIS and the FBI for unreasonably delaying the citizenship application of an Iranian national who has been a permanent resident of the United States since 2007. This lawsuit marks the thirteenth plaintiff CAIR-Columbus is currently representing in Federal Court with some type of immigration application delay just since the beginning of 2017 alone.
CAIR reported today that more than 400 delegates from 30 states, including a large delegation from Ohio organized by CAIR-Columbus, met on Monday and Tuesday with some 230 elected officials and congressional staffers during the record-breaking third annual “National Muslim Advocacy Day” on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
Click here to view photos of the CAIR-Columbus Ohio Delegation Meetings
Franklin County Commissioner Kevin Boyce together with the newly-formed New American Advisory Council, which CAIR-Columbus is a part of, will host a New American Forum on Wednesday, May 10, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The event will foster dialogue and familiarity on the challenges and opportunities facing Franklin County’s immigrant community, while raising awareness and promoting integration through community engagement.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today reported preliminary data revealing that cases of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) profiling of Muslims accounted for 23 percent of CAIR case intakes in the first three months of 2017. This represents a 1,035 percent increase in CBP bias cases reported so far this year over the same period in 2016.
On Monday, May 1, through Tuesday, May 2, CAIR-Columbus and a group of its members will join more than 350 Muslims from 26 states for the third annual National Muslim Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
On Sunday, April 23, CAIR-Columbus Legal Director Romin Iqbal spoke at a town hall meeting jointly organized by the Indivisible Group Districts 3, 12, and 15 at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbus.
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CAIR-Columbus 20th Annual Banquet a Success
(COLUMBUS, 4/16/2017) – The Columbus office of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Columbus) today thanked those who contributed to the success of its 20th Annual Banquet and Fundraiser on Saturday, April 15. Click here to view a photo album of the event.
Yesterday, President Trump rolled-back FCC protections designed to stop your internet provider from selling your internet history without your permission. Now ISPs can make a quick buck by selling your data to big business or even the government. The changes go farther, allowing ISPs to implement new technologies to spy on their users and break the encryption that keeps millions of Americans depend on.
At a time when we spend an expanding part of our lives online, digital privacy is indispensable to our civil rights. CAIR-Ohio recently helped file a brief in federal court, arguing that a warrant should be needed to search your phone at the border.
CAIR-Columbus Legal Director Romin Iqbal participated in a town-hall debate organized by local news station ABC6 on March 20, 2017. The debate was on the new refugee and travel ban on six Muslim majority countries by President Trump. Iqbal opposed the ban and debated the issue with Mr. Jason Beardsley and Mr. Michael Gonidakis who were in support of the ban. The debate was lively with a lot of back and forth between the three participants. Iqbal argued that the ban did not advance US security interests, that it was, in fact, detrimental to American interests and that the ban would not be able to survive Court challenges on its constitutionality.
You can watch the debate at: http://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/town-hall-immigration-and-the-state-of-the-union
CAIR-Columbus Legal Director Romin Iqbal gave a presentation at the North Congregational United Church of Christ on March 26, 2017. The presentation was well attended by members of the Church and lasted for around ninety minutes. In the first half of the presentation, Iqbal spoke about the legal issues relating to the travel and refugee ban by the President, the new directive by the DHS on treatment of undocumented migrants, and the various civil rights challenges faced by the Muslim community in Ohio. The first half was followed by a question and answer session where Iqbal took questions from an attentive audience on the travel ban, on avenues for providing support to the Ohio Muslim community, and on other issues covered in his presentation.
On Monday, March 27, CAIR-Columbus and attorney Inna Simakovsky were recognized by Columbus City Council for their outstanding legal work representing a group of immigrants who were faced with losing their commercial drivers licenses. Jennifer Nimer and Simakovsky held a legal clinic open to the public on New Year’s Day to provide free appeals for anyone who walked through the door. Overall they filed over 45 appeals, which ultimately led the Ohio BMV to reverse its policy and not revoke the CDL licenses.
Click here to view video of of the resolution being presented at the City Council meeting and to hear the remarks made by City Council.
BEFORE YOU GET TO THE AIRPORT:
- Use a password as its more secure than a fingerprint lock.
- Delete and shift content to a cloud or leave device at home and use a temporary device.
- Make sure you do full-disk encryption and backup the data somewhere else
- If you decide to travel with your regular device, ensure all social media accounts, email accounts, or any other accounts with sensitive information are deleted from your phone.
- Memorize your attorney’s phone number, and make sure a family member has your complete itinerary, including flight numbers, and your attorney’s name and contact info.