Category Archives: activism

Resistance in Action (3)

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, migrant defense

Second Statement to the Princeton Council on the ITA Resolution

This is my second statement to the Princeton Municipal Council on the issue of the ITA Resolution (August 11). For my first one (July 28), go here. For recent news coverage of the adoption of the resolution, go here and here. I’m in the middle of writing up a more comprehensive account of the press coverage of the campaign for the Princeton ITA resolution, and will post it when I can. 

Hi, my name is Irfan Khawaja. I live in Princeton.

I wanted to thank you for the wording of this resolution. I’ve read them all, and the resolution you’ve adopted is probably the best of the bunch.   Continue reading →

Resistance in Action (2)

Posted on by under activism, character based voting, migrant defense

The Princeton ITA Resolution Passes

Part 1 of this series. 

Well, readers, it passed: the “Princeton Resolution of the Mayor and Council of Princeton Supporting the Passage of the Immigrant Trust Act” passed unanimously tonight, 5-0, with two absences. Having read the texts of several of the ITA municipal resolutions out there, I would say that Princeton’s is probably the best of the bunch: the strongest, clearest, and most explicit about its political aims. Continue reading →

Resistance in Action (1)

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, migrant defense

The Princeton Immigrant Trust Resolution

For the last two months, activists with Resistencia en Acción (including myself) have urged Princeton’s Mayor and Council to pass a municipal resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act (ITA), a piece of pro-migrant legislation introduced last September in the New Jersey state legislature but currently stalled there. About a dozen New Jersey municipalities have adopted municipal resolutions urging passage of the ITA, and efforts are under way to persuade other municipalities to pass it as well. Continue reading →

‘Town Topics’: PR as Journalism

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

I read with interest but also dismay Town Topics’ coverage of the public comments portion of the July 28 meeting of the Princeton Town Council. The article begins with a brief overview of the issues covered. It goes on to quote Mayor Mark Freda, then quotes Council President Mia Sacks. A long excerpt then follows of the Council’s July 28 statement regarding a recent set of ICE detentions in town. Continue reading →

Chris Hedges: Statement to Princeton Town Council

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

By Chris Hedges, transcribed by Irfan Khawaja, posted with Hedges’ permission
Thank you Mr Mayor and Council members, for allowing us to speak. I know it’s probably been a bit uncomfortable, but listen: everybody in this room is alive, vital, committed, impassioned, honest, and courageous. It’s what makes Princeton a great community, and before I begin, I just want to say how much I admire the integrity and the courage and the commitment of my neighbors to stand up for their neighbors which, as a former seminarian, is of course the fundamental Biblical injunction: we are enjoined to love our neighbor, not our tribe. Continue reading →

Statement to Princeton Town Council

Posted on by under activism, migrant defense

Statement Urging Passage of a Municipal Resolution in Favor of the Immigrant Trust Act
Princeton Town Council
Princeton Municipal Building
400 Witherspoon St
Princeton, New Jersey
July 28, 2025

My name is Irfan Khawaja, I’m a resident of Princeton, and I support a municipal resolution in favor of the Immigrant Trust Act. I’ll be forwarding written statements to the Council from Flemington Borough Council member Trent Levitt, Bloomfield mayor Jenny Mundell, and former New Jersey state representative Sadaf Jaffer, all urging passage of such a resolution. I’ve asked several other mayors and local officials to weigh in, and my hope is that they will. 
Continue reading →

Second Statement to the Union County Board

Posted on by under activism

Second Statement to the Union County Board of Commissioners
Administration Building
Elizabethtown Plaza
Elizabeth, New Jersey
July 24, 2025

The last time I was here, I said that the Board had handed the jail off to ICE. That may have sounded misleading or uninformed. Resolutions 290 and 291 aren’t an unrestricted auction to the highest bidder, you might say. They’re a solicitation of interest in a sale relative to a set of constraints. The constraints restrict the potential bidders so as to exclude immigration detention. What more could you ask? Continue reading →

The Final Solution Is Here

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

I am, as I write this, sitting in a quiet air-conditioned room in a comfortable, modern library. The window to my right looks out on a bright, sunlit plaza. The plaza hosts a series of high end restaurants, each of which is set up for outdoor dining, with umbrellas to ward off the sun and heaters to keep out the chill. There are maybe a couple of dozen people out there enjoying the warmth of the evening. In observing this scene, a non sequitur of a thought occurs to me. Five thousand seven hundred miles away, a genocide is taking place. People are being starved, shot, and bombed to death with obscene abandon. The contrast is so stark as to be surreal. And yet it’s real. Continue reading →

Loyalty and Academic Freedom

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

The case of Jonathan A. C. Brown
A friend is circulating an Open Letter to Interim President Robert Groves of Georgetown University in defense of Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown, the Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilisation in the School of Foreign Service. Apparently, during the recent US-Israel-Iran war, Brown made this comment on X:

“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops,” Brown wrote on X.

Brown has tenure and a chaired professorship at Georgetown, but apparently the comment was regarded as frightening enough to call for his suspension. The President forced Brown to delete the tweet, and he’s now been suspended. He’s also been removed as chair of his department, which I believe was intended as punishment. Continue reading →