I rarely work on Sundays, but had to go in today. On my way in, I meet a friend, a Spanish-speaking migrant who, like so many, does landscaping work in town.
“I have to work today,” I complain. “I hate working Sundays.” It’s a tone-deaf comment. He has to work himself.
”I work every day,” he rejoins matter-of-factly. “I have no day of rest.”
Continue readingMore Botched Reporting from Town Topics
In an earlier post here, I took issue with Town Topics’s defective reporting on the ITA municipal resolution campaign in Princeton. In quoting exclusively from members of the Princeton Council in its reporting on the July 28 Council meeting, I argued, the paper functioned essentially as a PR mouthpiece for the Council rather than as an expression of bona fide journalism. I sent a shorter version of that post as a letter to the editor of Town Topics, but it wasn’t printed. The paper’s most recent reporting on the August 11 meeting makes an attempt of sorts to remedy the problem, but still falls woefully short. Continue reading
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
I’ve just worked a fifteen hour day. I want it all to end. I want to end it all.
I take the 8:54 train out of Metropark, hoping to get to Princeton Junction in time to catch the 9:25 bus into town. I’m in luck. We get in at 9:24.
Just as we get there, the son-of-a-bitch bus driver pulls away. In other words, he sees a whole trainload of commuters come in, then leaves a minute early. I curse as I watch him go, sympathizing briefly with every terrorist who’s ever lived. Continue reading
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
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
“Starve away.”–Randy Fine
“We must be able to will that a maxim of our action become a universal law: this is the canon of moral appraisal of action in general.” —Immanuel Kant
“The Jews, unable to leave the City, were deprived of all hope of survival. The famine became more intense and devoured whole houses and families. The roofs were covered with women and babies too weak to stand, the streets full of old men already dead. Young men and boys, swollen with hunger, haunted the squares like ghosts and fell wherever faintness overcame them. To bury their kinfolk was beyond the strength of the sick, and those who were fit shirked the task because of the number of the dead and uncertainty about their own fate; for many while burying others fell dead themselves, and many set out for their graves before their hour struck.” Continue reading
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
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 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
Policy of Truth 