The Indian Consulate in Seattle has denied local Indian-American politician Kshama Sawant an emergency visa to visit her ailing mother in Bangalore. The former Seattle City Councilwoman claims that while her husband Calvin Priest was granted an emergency visa, her own application was denied. She said that an official at the Consulate informed her that her name is on a “reject list” but refused to give her any further explanation.
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Sawant posted about the incident on X, stating that she and her husband refused to leave the Consulate as an act of civil disobedience. Members of Workers Strike Back – an independent worker’s movement founded by Sawant – also joined her at the Consulate.
“A Consular officer said I’m being denied a visa coz I’m on Modi govt’s ‘reject list.’ It’s clear why,” she wrote in her post on X. “My socialist City Council office passed a resolution condemning Modi’s anti-Muslim anti-poor CAA-NRC citizenship law. We also won a historic ban on caste discrimination.”
In 2020, when Sawant was a Seattle Councilwoman, she sponsored a resolution condemning the Modi government’s Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Then in February 2023, Seattle became the first American city to ban caste discrimination after the City Council passed legislation written by Sawant.
In a social media post, the Consulate referred to the incident as a “law and order situation” and called Sawant and her supporters at the Consulate trespassers.
“Despite repeated requests, these individuals refused to leave the Consulate premises and engaged in aggressive and threatening behavior with the Consulate staff. We were compelled to call in relevant local authorities to deal with the situation. Further action is being initiated against the trespassers,” said the post.
In a video posted by Workers Strike Back from the sit-in, Sawant says that her visa was denied three times without a reason. “That officer tells me to be respectable,” she said referring to a consular officer, “I asked him, how respectable is it for the Modi government to deny an 82-year old woman who has a lot of illnesses, who is worried about her life and wants to see her daughter… the right to see her daughter?”