News roundup: Gaza encampments on campuses, millions awarded to local immigrant and refugee serving nonprofits, and a spring market in Clarkston.

Students and community members gathered on the quad at Emory on Friday.

Update on Gaza encampments in GA: Students and community members set up a Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of Georgia in Athens Monday morning, mirroring protests on campuses across the country. Shortly after the encampment was set up, campus police, backed by Athens-Clarke County Police and Georgia State Patrol, arrested 16 people.

UGA spokesperson Greg Trevor confirmed in an email to 285 South that individuals were arrested for trespassing at 8:30am, after failing to make a “required reservation under our Freedom of Expression policy.” “UGA Police were left with no choice but to arrest those who refused to comply, said Trevor. “Any students, faculty or staff members arrested could also face further disciplinary action by the University,” he said.

This comes days after an encampment was briefly set up at Emory, and then broken up by law enforcement officers, who arrested more than two dozen people. Read The Emory Wheel for the latest developments.

Indian national dies under ICE custody: Jaspal Singh, a 57-year old Indian national who was in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody at the Folkston ICE Processing Center, died at a hospital in St. Mary’s, Georgia, earlier this month. Singh had crossed the U.S.-Mexico Border in June of 2023, and was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Border Patrol officers. An autopsy is pending, according to a statement released by ICE. 285 South has reached out to the Indian consulate for more information, but hasn’t yet received a response. In 2023, more than 90,000 Indian nationals crossed the southern border, up from 20,000 in 2020. Read more here.

Asian Americans students speak about their top issues: The Georgia Asian Times spoke to four Asian American students at UGA about what’s on their mind this election season. The themes? Frustration with the political establishment and concerns around racism. “I do not want a racist president. Someone who’s actively racist and who’s known to be so racist in the past, I do not want that,” said a Nepalese student who grew up in southwest Georgia. “I’m really torn because we are kinda given the same options as last time,” said another student. “It’s either one side or completely the other, which I don’t think either is good.” Read the full story here.

Immigrant and refugee serving nonprofits receive millions: Billionaire philanthropist Mckenzie Scott is donating $2 million to Ser Familia, a local nonprofit that supports Latino families in the Atlanta area, and another $2 million to Ethne Health, a clinic in Clarkston serving the city’s diverse refugee communities. It’s “truly a game changer,” said Belisa Urbina, co-founder and CEO of Ser Familia, in an interview with the AJC. Read the full story here.

Fresh food, again: Kashi Seghal is the founder of Retaaza, a social enterprise company with the mission of connecting food grown by local farmers to those who need it most. Retaaza (which translates to “again, fresh”) operates a mobile market that is stocked with food from local farmers that they would have otherwise thrown out, and distributes that produce to food insecure communities. “I like to think of us being like an air traffic control tower—a connector of resources across the local food industry,” said Seghal in an interview with Khabar magazine. Read the article here.

And finally, spring market in Clarkston: Dozens of vendors sold items and hosted informational tables at the Clarkston-based coffee shop’s annual spring market on Saturday. There was everything from My First Somali counting and coloring books to homemade Palestinian taboon bread to Know Your Rights cards in Burmese, Swahili, Arabic, and French.