Newsletter: May 7, 2025
Good morning, 285 South readers, A few events to look out for in the next week: At Saturday’s Suwanee Asian Festival, you’ll find food, art, and music representing a range of communities—including Laotian, Malaysian, and Filipino—all coming out to honor Asian American Heritage Month. It’s also Mother’s Day weekend, and on Sunday the Yemeni coffee shop Shibam is hosting a mother-child calligraphy class in Alpharetta. Next Thursday, the Alif Institute is hosting a Mother’s Day Garden Brunch. Advocacy groups are hosting a virtual training on Tuesday on visiting and writing letters to people in immigrant detention. Here’s what 285 South has been covering: Arrests are up, deportations are (maybe) down: An expert helps us parse the government’s confusing immigration numbers  The Trump administration is “making wild claims” about deportations and arrests of immigrants—and “not providing any evidence,” says Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University researcher who’s spent the past decade studying immigration enforcement. Kocher has also spent time studying the 287(g) program, under which local agencies—like sheriff’s offices—assist federal authorities in enforcing immigration law; five more Georgia counties recently entered agreements to participate in the controversial program. We asked Kocher to help us understand ICE deportation and arrest numbers—and what’s different under the current administration. Read our Q&A with Austin Kocher here. As India Targets Pakistan, Indian American residents come out for “Hindu Lives Matter” rally in Suwanee  The “Hindu Lives Matter” rally at the Patel Plaza in Suwanee on May 4, 2025. Photo credit: Timothy Pratt Just a few days before Tuesday’s news broke that India’s military had struck targets in Pakistan, and Pakistan claimed to have shot down Indian air force jets, the animosity between the two countries was evident 8000 miles away in a strip mall in Suwanee. On Sunday, several dozen metro Atlanta residents had gathered at Patel Plaza for a rally. Many held signs saying “October 7 for Israel. April 22 for India”, “Hindu Lives Matter” and “Stand with India.” For many who had joined, it was the first rally they’d ever attended. The Indian government has blamed Pakistan for the April 22 attack, despite the incident still being under investigation, and both countries have taken tit-for-tat measures that have raised fears of a full-scale war between the nuclear neighbors. Inside Indian-administered Kashmir, which is majority Muslim, the Indian prime minister has given the army “complete operational freedom” to hunt down the gunmen. So far they’ve arrested more than 1,500 Kashmiris and raided more than 1,000 homes. In Suwanee, though, the crowd’s focus was on pushing the U.S. government to take action against Pakistan. Read the full story here. There’s a new Uzbek restaurant in town  Hand-pulled noodles prepared by Laghman Express Atlanta in Alpharetta. Photo credit: Gabriela Henriquez Stoikow. When it opened its doors in Alpharetta three weeks ago, Laghman Express Atlanta became the first-ever Uzbek-owned restaurant in the metro area. The menu features dishes not only from Uzbekistan but from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and from the Uyghur people, said Babur Akhmedov, one of the owners—including hand-pulled noodles and plov, a Central Asian combination of seasoned rice, carrots, raisins, and chickpeas served with lamb and beef. Laghman already has two locations in New York City; Babur’s nephew, chef Oibek Dzhuraev, trained the staff who are operating the kitchen in Alpharetta. Check back in later this week for the story. Stories we’re following: Hundreds of people showed up in Gainesville in support of Georgia’s immigrant communities (Atlanta Community Press Collective) A Georgia citizen detained in Florida talks about his traumatic experience with the police and ICE (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) The CEO of Global Village Project, a nonprofit providing free education for refugee girls in Georgia, is stepping down (Decaturish) The Georgia Asian Times unveiled its annual list of 25 influential Asian American and Pacific Islander leaders (Georgia Asian Times) Taxpayers are paying the rising costs of ICE flights moving detained immigrants around the country (Bloomberg) The uncle of White House aide and prominent white nationalist Stephen Miller talks about his family history with immigration—and calls his nephew a hypocrite (Politico) In a series of enforcement actions in heavily Latino neighborhoods, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and federal authorities detained as many as 100 people in Nashville on Sunday (Nashville Banner) That’s all for now. We’ll see you here next week. – The 285 South Team – |
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