(RNS) — Immigration rights activist Ravi Ragbir, who had been under a deportation order since his release from prison for fraud in 2006, received a pardon from President Joseph Biden in a last-minute flurry of pardons issued Sunday (Jan. 19).
“I am so grateful to President Biden for this pardon, which has lifted a burden that I have carried for so many years,” said Ragbir in a statement. “The uncertainty and instability of not knowing what tomorrow would bring has kept me and my family awake for many nights, and we can now breathe,” he said.
Ragbir, a well-known immigration rights activist in New York City, had filed a pardon application in 2016, hoping to be spared deportation triggered by his criminal record. A chorus of nationally known faith leaders and other clergy in the New York area had supported his plea to be allowed to stay. Since 2007, he has served as the director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, a group founded in partnership with Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village that accompanies immigrants to their check-ins with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Ragbir was himself arrested in 2018 at an ICE check-in and designated for deportation, but a federal judge, calling Ragbir a “redeemed man,” overruled the ICE order. After he successfully argued that he had been arrested in retaliation for his activism in violation of the First Amendment, the government gave him a stay until Dec. 16, 2024.
At a ICE check-in on Jan. 13, he was told the agency would be proceeding with deportation. Biden’s pardon means he can remain in the United States with his American-citizen wife and daughter.
In this March 9, 2017, file photo, Ravi Ragbir, center, executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, a Trinidad-born immigrant who works to protect New York’s immigrant families from detention and deportation, walks with supporters as he arrives for his annual check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
Christian clergy who advocated for Ragbir were pleased by Biden’s pardon. “I am grateful to God and the hundreds of supporters and the President who believed in the redemptive work Ravi has seen in his own life and, in turn, undertaken and shown in his work with the immigrant community in America,” said the Rev. Robert Foltz-Morrison, a minister of the Presbyterian Church, USA in New York.
In 2018, Bishop Lawrence Provenzano of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island made Ragbir an honorary canon, a title recognizing service to the church or faith, and has been a vocal defender. On Sunday, Ragbir’s news was announced at a Mass at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, the diocese’s pro-cathedral in Brooklyn, where he lives.
The Rev. Canon Marie Tatro, a priest associate at the pro-cathedral, recalling Ragbir’s “courageous leadership to the people of our diocese and the larger community,” said, “It was truly a joy to make the announcement about his pardon in the context of my sermon to a cheering congregation. Thank you, President Biden, for seeing the goodness in Ravi that we see.”
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was one of several members of Congress who expressed their support of Ragbir’s pardon. “I was proud to work for years with Ravi and many supporting organizations in New York as he navigated the legal and immigration systems looking for well-earned relief,” Schumer said in an emailed statement. “With this pardon, Ravi is now free to remain in his home in Brooklyn, and continue to help others and to enrich our city.”
New York City Council member Shahana Hanif said, “Ravi has been a pillar of the immigrant rights movement for years. I am deeply grateful for his advocacy and am relieved that he will be able to continue his work in New York without fear of deportation.”