The problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of the noncitizen. Be it in America, where a demagogue rose to the Presidency on an anti–immigrant platform, or in Europe, where far–right political parties are gaining control over national politics. Constitutive to what injustice means for noncitizens is that the hostile political environments in which […]
Category: Policy
Introducing mob epistemology
In this piece, I aim to set out a rough idea on the politics of epistemic injustice. Or, in English: I want to explore the role of knowledge and truth in our current political situation, examining American politics as an example of how knowledge is weaponized to amplifying the oligarchic few while silencing the suppressed […]
Noncitizenship and the case for illegalized persons
NOTE: This blog post was published on The Berkeley Blogs on January 24th, 2017. You can find the original post here. -ize (verb suffix): cause to be or conform to or resemble…cause to be formed into… (2): subject to a (specified) action…treat according to the method of… — Merriam Webster Part I: Introduction As a […]
On recognition, rights, and the illegal
Article 6 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that “Everyone has a right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.” But as the existing climate has made clear, that is far from the case. Donald Trump has ascended to the presidency on a platform that has disparaged women, Muslims, […]
No Church in the Wild: The Politics of the Sanctuary Campus
NOTE: This blog post was published on the Berkeley Blog on November 23rd, 2016. You can find the original post here. “Lies on the lips of a priest/Thanksgiving disguised as a feast” — Jay-Z and Kanye West, No Church in The Wild (from Watch the Throne) It has been two weeks since the election that […]
The Undocumented Black Mind: My Story
NOTE: I presented the following as a talk given at Columbia University as part of the “I am an Undocumented Immigrant: Let’s Talk About It!” held on April 25, 2016. My name is Joel Sati, and I am an immigrant from Kenya. I came to this country at the age of nine, in 2002. I lived in Georgia […]
The Futility of the DREAMer Endorsement
NOTE: This was published in The Odyssey on Feb 8, 2016. Since I no longer write for the publication, the piece was removed from the site. I republish it here. In the season of campaigns and candidates are on the hunt – in pursuit of funding to fuel the daily work of campaigning and for […]
Reconceptualizing ‘Status’ In The Context Of Baltimore
Immigration activism – like everything else – happens in the context of state violence, and it is naïve to think that getting legal status will shield us from the violence Black bodies, PoC bodies, and LGBTQ bodies are systematically subjected to.
Project Introduction “Other Borders: Undocumented Immigrants and Claims for Regularization”
Over the course of the next few months, I want to spell out what claims undocumented immigrants can make if we assume that the immigration system is just and the immigration system distributes its benefits in a procedurally fair way. For the purposes of this discussion, the benefit in question is the conferral of resident […]
Reflections on a New Project
An aim of my upcoming project is to situate the species of immigration policy in the genus of multicultural policies. Defining multiculturalism as Banting and Kymlicka do, to refer to “an ideology that attaches positive value to cultural diversity, calls for the equal recognition of different cultural groups, and calls upon the state to support […]
Undocumental 
