Author Archives: Irfan Khawaja

The Immigrant Trust Tour: Elizabeth

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Statement to the Union County Board of County Commissioners
12 Elizabethtown Plaza
Elizabeth, New Jersey
October 23, 2025

Hi, my name is Irfan Khawaja; I live in Princeton. As some of you may remember, I spoke here previously on the matter of the Union County jail. Those of us involved in that effort were pleased to see the Commission conclude this past July that detention-related uses of the jail were “off the table” because they “would not align with Union County’s values.”  

Given the troubling reports we’ve seen nationwide about ICE detaining not only individuals with criminal charges, but also everyday people simply trying to build better lives, we cannot support any outcome that risks putting people in jeopardy.

Continue reading →

The Trenton Campaign: No Collaboration with ICE

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Statement of Hilary Persky to Trenton City Council
319 E. State St.
Trenton, New Jersey
October 21, 2025

Like so many here, I have watched the Trenton Police, during an ICE raid in August, establish a perimeter around ICE agents. We’re told this was to maintain public safety, because ICE had a battering ram, but no warrant, ready to break in–with no warrant. And a police perimeter. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: October Update

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

To the best of my knowledge, the municipal-level campaign to persuade the New Jersey state legislature to pass the Immigrant Trust Act started last December in Madison, New Jersey, an affluent college town in a relatively conservative part of the state. By March, about a dozen municipalities had followed suit. 

Things quieted down in the months after that, but with the impetus of a constant drumbeat of ICE raids, things started up again in June with the campaign for a resolution in Princeton, which eventually passed in August. Whether it’s correlation or causality or both, the movement has heated up since then and gone statewide. About twenty municipalities and two counties have at this point passed pro-ITA resolutions, and plenty of county commissions and town councils across the state are facing demands to pass more. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: West Windsor

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Letter to the Editor of CommunityNews (West Windsor & Plainsboro)

Though I’m not a West Windsor resident, I read with interest your coverage of the upcoming election for mayor and town council, and in particular, the Q&A addressed to the candidates (“West Windsor voters to decide mayor, council contests,” Oct 2).

That said, it seems to me that one important question went unasked. The question is: would the mayor and council be willing to pass a municipal resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act (ITA)? Such resolutions have been passed by some twenty municipalities in the state, including nearby Princeton, and by two counties, including Essex and Hudson.  How about West Windsor? Continue reading →

How You Gonna Win if You Ain’t Right Within?

Posted on by under migrant defense, Palestine

Just an FYI to the “No Kings” Democrats: you don’t get to blather to us about “No Kings” while calling for the disarmament of a population under military occupation. The people running these demonstrations seem too historically illiterate to remember that the American Revolution was a war, and that it got rid of the King by killing his troops. Continue reading →

Policy of Truth at Radio Jornalera NJ

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, General announcements, migrant defense

I’m pleased to mention that my October 8 post, “La Migra and the Lessons of History,” has been published in both English and Spanish at the Substack of Radio Jornalera NJ, where some of my migrant defense posts will, going forward, be cross-posted. Many thanks to Radio Jornalera’s editor Paulo Almiron for translating the piece into Spanish. I’m also grateful for Radio Jornalera’s posting an earlier piece of mine, on activism and its critics. Continue reading →

Carol Gilligan and Migrant Defense

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

I first encountered Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice somewhat late in life, as a master’s student in counseling psychology in my mid-forties. The book was published in 1982, but I didn’t read it until the fall of 2014, making me about 32 years late to the party. I’d encountered mentions of the book often enough, but had somehow been given to understand that it was “OK, but overhyped”–old hat by a feminist of the bygone variety: unoriginal, lacking in rigor, and problematically essentialist in its claims about gender. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: New Brunswick

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Statement to the Middlesex County Board of Commissioners
75 Bayard St.
New Brunswick, New Jersey
October 16, 2025

Hi. My name is Irfan Khawaja. I live in Princeton, but work in Iselin, and spend most of my waking hours in Middlesex County. I’m here to urge you to join Essex and Hudson counties, plus a couple dozen municipalities, in passing a resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act. Continue reading →

The Immigrant Trust Tour: Cranbury

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Cranbury Township Committee
23 N. Main St.
Cranbury, New Jersey
October 13, 2025

Hi. My name is Irfan Khawaja. I live in Princeton, and I’d like to urge the Cranbury Township Committee to pass a resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act like the one we have in Princeton.

It’s no secret that Cranbury has lots of warehouses and thousands of square feet of warehouse space. I myself used to do data entry work at the old Lenox China facility nearby. Continue reading →