WASHINGTON—President Biden today pardoned Ravi Ragbir, a prominent community activist who was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2018 and detained for deportation after criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Mr. Ragbir was one of several prominent immigrant-rights activists targeted for deportation around that time in apparent retaliation for their advocacy. 

“We applaud President Biden’s decision to pardon Mr. Ragbir, an immigrant rights advocate whom ICE attempted to deport under the previous administration because of his vocal opposition to the agency’s deportation tactics,” said Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute. “Pardoning Mr. Ragbir sends an important message about the constitutional legitimacy of his advocacy and the illegitimacy of targeting immigrants like him based on their criticism of government policy.”

In 2018, the Knight Institute, Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP), and the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center filed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Ragbir, arguing that the U.S. government’s retaliation against him and other immigrant-rights activists violated the First Amendment.

Earlier this week, the Knight Institute announced its support of  Mr. Ragbir’s pardon application, which also had the support of his federal sentencing judge, the federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, and the New York Attorney General, along with many faith leaders and human rights organizations and multiple members of Congress. 

Read today’s clemency  announcement here. 

Read the Knight Institute’s amicus brief in Ragbir v. Homan here.

Listen to the Knight Institute’s podcast featuring Mr. Ragbir, “Views on First: Speech & the Border Ep. 1: What are we so afraid of?” here.

For more information, contact: Lorraine Kenny, [email protected].