An Indian-origin US lawyer has argued on Twitter that the United States’ criticism on India regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was ‘misguided’, adding that US has a version of the CAA that protects religious prosecuted groups.
Rajdeep Singh Jolly took to Twitter to say, “After further study, I believe U.S. criticism of India’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) was misguided. The law merely reduces wait times for certain persecuted minorities seeking asylum, much like the Lautenberg Amendment under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) (sic).”
According to Jolly, who shared a screenshot of an Amendment in the US Constitution, certain members of religious minority groups in Eurasia and the Baltics, including Jews, Evangelical Christians and Ukrainian Catholics are considered under a reduced evidentiary standard for establishing a well-founded fear of persecution.
Even Eastern Europe picked and chose the type of refugees they wanted. According to a 2015 report in Quartz, during the peak of the Syria refugee crisis, many Eastern European nations were choosing Christian refugees over Muslims. Slovakia’s interior ministry said it would be willing to take in 200 refugees, but would strongly prefer non-Muslims. ”We want to choose people who really want to start a new life in Slovakia. Slovakia as a Christian country can really help Christians from Syria to find new home in Slovakia,” a spokesperson for the ministry had said at the time.
Several human rights organisations have criticised the Narendra Modi-led administration about the CAA, saying it is ‘unconstitutional’ and a direct target at minority communities, particularly Muslims.
According to the CAA, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and Parsi migrants who have illegally entered India in the past five years from Muslim-majority nations such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are eligible to apply for Indian citizenship. The Centre has excluded Muslims from this list as the other religions, they say, have faced prosecution I in these nations and it is India’s ‘moral obligation’ to provide them shelter. Why is the provision extended only to people of six religions, and not Muslims, and why does it apply only to people coming from these three countries?The Union government claims that people of these six faiths have faced persecution in these three Islamic countries, Muslims haven't. It is, therefore, India's moral obligation to provide them shelter.
India has witnessed nationwide protests over the CAA, with Shaheen Baug in Delhi witnessing protests for nearly a month.
