In the hours after some of Silicon Valley Bank’s biggest customers started pulling out their money, a WhatsApp group of startup founders who are immigrants of color ballooned to more than 1,000 members. Questions flowed as the bank’s financial status worsened. Some desperately sought advice: Could they open an account at a larger bank without a Social Security Number? Others questioned whether they had to physically be at a bank to open an account, because they're visiting parents overseas. One clear theme emerged: a deep concern about the broader impact on startups led by people of color. While Wall Street struggles to contain the banking crisis after the swift demise of SVB — the nation's 16th largest bank and the biggest to fail since the 2008 financial meltdown — industry experts predict it could become even harder for people of color to secure funding or a financial home supporting their startups. SVB had opened its doors to such entrepreneurs, offering opportunities to form crucial relationships in the technology and financial communities that had been out of reach within larger financial institutions. But smaller players have fewer means of surviving a collapse, reflecting the perilous journey minority entrepreneurs face while attempting to navigate industries historically rife with racism. “All these folks that have very special circumstances based on their identity, it’s not something that they can just change about themselves and that makes them unbankable by the top four (large banks),” said Asya Bradley, a board member of numerous startups who has watched the WhatsApp group grapple with SVB's demise. Bradley said some investors have implored startups to switch to larger financial institutions to stymie future financial risks, but that's not an easy transition. “The reason why we’re going to regional and community banks is because these (large) banks don’t want our business,” Bradley said. Banking expert Aaron Klein, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, said SVB’s collapse could exacerbate racial disparities. “That’s going to be more challenging for people who don’t fit the traditional credit box, including minorities,” Klein said. "A financial system that prefers the existing holders of wealth will perpetuate the legacy of past discrimination.” Tiffany Dufu was gutted when she couldn’t access her SVB account and, in turn, could not pay her employees. Read more: One of Silicon Valley's top banks fails; assets are seized Dufu raised $5 million as CEO of The Cru, a New York-based career coaching platform and community for women. It was a rare feat for businesses founded by Black women, which get less than 1% of the billions of dollars in venture capital funding doled out yearly to startups. She banked with SVB because it was known for its close ties to the tech community and investors. “In order to have raised that money, I pitched nearly 200 investors over the past few years,” said Dufu, who has since regained access to her funds and moved to Bank of America. “It’s very hard to put yourself out there and time after time — you get told this isn’t a good fit. So, the money in the bank account was very precious.” A February Crunchbase News analysis determined funding for Black-founded startups slowed by more than 50% last year after they received a record $5.1 billion in venture capital in 2021. Overall venture funding dropped from about $337 billion to roughly $214 billion, while Black founders were hit disproportionately hard, dropping to just $2.3 billion, or 1.1% of the total. Entrepreneur Amy Hilliard, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, knows how difficult it is to secure financing. It took three years to secure a loan for her cake manufacturing company, and she had to sell her home to get it started. Banking is based on relationships and when a bank like SVB goes under, “those relationships go away, too,” said Hilliard, who is African American. Some conservative critics asserted SVB's commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion were to blame, but banking experts say those claims were false. The bank slid into insolvency because its larger customers pulled deposits rather than borrow at higher interest rates and the bank's balance sheets were overexposed, forcing it to sell bonds at a loss to cover the withdrawals. “If we’re focused on climate or communities of color or racial equity, that has nothing to do with what happened with Silicon Valley Bank,” said Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, co-founder of Known Holdings, a Black, Indigenous, Asian American-founded investment banking platform focused on the sustainable growth of minority-managed funds. Red-Horse Mohl — who has raised, structured and managed over $3 billion in capital for tribal nations — said most larger banks are led by white men and majority-white boards, and “even when they do DEI programs, it’s not a really deep sort of shifting of capital.” Smaller financial institutions, however, have worked to build relationships with people of color. “We cannot lose our regional and community banks," she said. "It would be a travesty.” Historically, smaller and minority-owned banks have addressed funding gaps that larger banks ignored or even created, following exclusionary laws and policies as they turned away customers because of the color of their skin. But the ripple effects from SVB's collapse are being felt among these banks as well, said Nicole Elam, president and CEO of the National Bankers Association, a 96-year-old trade association representing more than 175 minority-owned banks. Some have seen customers withdraw funds and move to larger banks out of fear, even though most minority-owned banks have a more traditional customer base, with secured loans and minimal risky investments, she said. “You’re seeing customer flight of folks that we’ve been serving for a long time,” Elam said. “How many people may not come to us for a mortgage or small business loan or to do their banking business because they now have in their mind that they need to bank with a bank that is too big to fail? That's the first impact of eroding public trust.” Black-owned banks have been hit the hardest as the industry consolidates. Most don't have as much capital to withstand economic downturns. At its peak, there were 134. Today, there are only 21. But change is on the way. Within the last three years, the federal government, private sector and philanthropic community have invested heavily in minority-run depository institutions. “In response to this national conversation around racial equity, people are really seeing minority banks are key to wealth creation and key to helping to close the wealth gap," Elam said. Bradley also is an angel investor, providing seed money for a number of entrepreneurs, and is seeing new opportunities as people network in the WhatsApp group to help each other remain afloat and grow. “I'm really so hopeful,” Bradley said. “Even in the downfall of SVB, it has managed to form this incredible community of folks that are trying to help each other to succeed. They're saying, 'SVB was here for us, now we're going to be here for each other.'”

From the day of her birth in Pakistan, Iram Aslam was betrothed to a cousin 17 days older. But to the young woman, who emigrated as a teenager to this Italian farm town on the Po River plain, the cousin felt like a brother. So on a visit to her homeland, she played for time, telling her aunts she wasn’t ready for marriage. “They did everything possible to make me marry him,″ said Aslam, now 29. She said she told them: ”‘I don’t want to marry him and please don’t ask me anymore.’” Her family, in both Italy and Pakistan, kept scheming to have her wed a man of their choice — and their caste. Aslam dismissed around 30 potential husbands. “In the end, I made everyone angry, and no one talks to me anymore,” she said of her relatives in Pakistan. In two murder trials this month, Italian prosecutors are seeking justice for Pakistani immigrant women allegedly killed because they refused marriages imposed by their parents. The cases highlight differences, often misconstrued as religion-based, between centuries-old immigrants’ cultural traditions and Western values prizing individualism. Also Read: Nearly 1 million asylum requests in the EU in 2022 “I liked another person, wanted another one,″ Aslam said of her own situation. “But they didn’t want it, because among us, love doesn’t exist.” Love is viewed “as a sin,” she added, her thick, wavy brown hair covered by a multicolored headscarf. She asked that her face not be fully shown for fear of further antagonizing Pakistani neighbors in Guastalla, a town of 15,000 where they are the dominant immigrant community. To escape marriage-obsessed relatives, Aslam went for a time to live in Germany. But there was no escape for 18-year-old Saman Abbas. Like Aslam, she emigrated as a teenager from Pakistan to an Italian farm town, Novellara, 11 kilometers (seven miles) from Guastalla. In what appears to be an identity card photo taken shortly after her arrival, Abbas’ face is framed by a black hijab, or headscarf. But the young woman quickly embraced Western ways, appearing in social media posts with her hair tumbling out from under a bright red headband. In one, she and her Pakistani boyfriend were shown kissing on a street in the regional capital, Bologna. According to Italian investigators, that kiss enraged Abbas’ parents, who wanted their daughter to marry a cousin in Pakistan. Also Read: Italy contributes €3mn to UNHCR for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh In November, her body was dug up in the ruins of a Novellara farmhouse. She had last been seen alive a few hundred yards away on April 30, 2021, in surveillance camera video as she walked with her parents on the watermelon farm where her father worked. A few days later, her parents caught a flight from Milan to Pakistan. Abbas had reportedly told her boyfriend she feared for her life, because she refused to be married to an older man in her homeland. An autopsy revealed a broken neck bone, possibly caused by strangulation. An uncle and a cousin were extradited from France, and another cousin from Spain. They are now on trial in Reggio Emilia, the provincial capital with jurisdiction over Novellara, accused of Abbas’ murder. Also indicted is her father, Shabbir Abbas, arrested in his village in eastern Punjab. The whereabouts of her mother, who is also charged, are unknown. A lawyer for her father, Akhtar Mahmood, told Italian state television that the young woman’s family is innocent. He disputed prosecutors’ allegations, contending that she had wanted to return with her family to Pakistan to flee Western ways. Asked about Italy’s request for Shabbir Abbas’ extradition, Pakistan’s ambassador to Italy, Ali Javed, told The Associated Press that the Pakistani government would “not hesitate” to do so. However, Italy has no extradition treaty with Pakistan. Javed blamed “individual ignorance″ for forced marriage, which is illegal in Pakistan. In 2019, Italy made coercing an Italian citizen or resident into marriage, even abroad, a crime covered under domestic violence laws. Late this month, police in Spain detained the father of two sisters who were allegedly murdered while visiting family in Pakistan. The women had reportedly refused to have their husbands come to Spain after being forced to marry their cousins. In the United Kingdom, home to Europe’s largest Pakistani community, the government’s Forced Marriage Unit cautioned that the problem of forced marriage isn’t “specific to one country, religion or culture” and said statistics don’t reflect “the full scale of the abuse” since forced marriage is a “hidden crime.” Under the Italian justice system, civil plaintiffs can attach lawsuits for damages to criminal trials, and two organizations representing Islamic communities in Italy are among those suing in the Abbas trial. Other plaintiffs include women’s advocacy organizations. Tiziana Dal Pra, whose group, Trama delle Terre, promotes intercultural relations, said that while violence surrounding forced marriage “gets interpreted as religious,” what’s really at play is “patriarchal control” of women’s bodies. In December, a court in the northern city of Brescia convicted and gave five-year prison sentences to three Pakistani immigrants — the parents and older brother of four girls — for beating them and keeping them out of school. According to court documents, the parents threatened their daughters that if they refused arranged marriages, they would end up like that “girl in Pakistan.” The court said that threat referred to 25-year-old Sana Cheema, who was slain when she returned from Italy to Pakistan in 2018, allegedly at her parents’ insistence. By her friends’ accounts, Cheema, who had taken Italian citizenship, loved her life in Brescia, where she worked out at a gym, went out for coffee with girlfriends and danced with them at a disco. She was proud of her job teaching at a driving school in the northern city. Brescia prosecutors are now trying Cheema’s father and brother in absentia on a novel charge: murder in violation of the political right to marry one’s own choice. In 2019, a court in Pakistan acquitted the two on murder charges, citing insufficient evidence. But Italy’s justice ministry ruled the Brescia trial could go forward since Pakistan and Italy have no agreement governing cases involving so-called judicial double jeopardy. Cheema’s family initially told Pakistani authorities that she died of a heart attack the day before she was supposed to fly back to Italy. Two friends testified in Brescia this month that Cheema told them her parents wanted her to marry a cousin in Pakistan. They also quoted from Facebook messages in which Cheema said her parents had confiscated her passport and phone in Pakistan. With the Italian Embassy closely following the case, Cheema’s body was exhumed. An autopsy indicated she was likely strangled. Prosecuting the case in Italy sends the message that “exercising the right of who you want to live with, above all, who you want to marry, is a political right” to be guaranteed “with utmost firmness,” Brescia Prosecutor General Guido Rispoli told the AP. At the edge of a field near the farmhouse where Saman Abbas’ body was found, mourners have left a stuffed toy squirrel and bunches of flowers at an improvised shrine. “It will continue to happen, I tell you, that’s how it is,″ Aslam said of violence linked to forced marriage. What progress has been made with trials like the ones in Reggio Emilia and Brescia isn’t enough, she added: “It’s like salt in flour.”  

As it struggles with low recruitment numbers, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) recently announced that immigrants who are permanent residents will now be able to enlist. According to the Royal United Services Institute of Nova Scotia, a non-profit organisation of retired and active duty members of the CAF, permanent residents were previously only qualified under the Skilled Military Foreign Applicant (SMFA) entry programme, which was “open for individuals... that would reduce training costs or fill a special need... such as a trained pilot or a doctor.” The decision was made five years after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) declared that they will change their “outdated recruitment process” to allow permanent citizens who have resided in Canada for ten years or more to apply, CTV News reports. With only roughly half the candidates it needs each month to reach its target of recruiting 5,900 new members this year, Canadian Armed Forces raised the alarm in September about a serious recruitment shortfall that was preventing it from filling thousands of open positions. Read: 2 dead after all-night shooting rampage in Vancouver, Canada The military has not confirmed whether the new action was taken to increase recruiting, but Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, believes it makes sense. Leuprecht told CTV News: “In the past, the CAF has had the luxury of being able to limit itself to citizens because it has had enough applicants. This is no longer the case.” He argued that many other nations have been doing this for years, so hiring non-citizens is by no means a novel idea. Since Canadian citizenship is relatively simple to obtain for permanent residents, it’s not clear what significant incentive it would offer in the Canadian scenario, he said. “Countries such as France use military service as either a pathway to citizenship or an accelerated pathway to citizenship.” Read: Canada imposes new sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas sector, chemical industry Anita Anand, Canada’s Defence Minister, stated in March that the CAF must expand to fulfil international demands brought on by the Russia-Ukraine war.

In an encouraging sign of normalcy returning to the overseas labour market for Bangladeshis, the number of workers receiving immigration clearance in a single month from the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training crossed 100,000 (1 lakh) last November. Only once before, in March 2017, had so many workers (above 1 lakh) received BMET clearance in a single month. But the November figure gains far more significance coming on the back of the post-Covid lockdown slump witnessed in the international labour market. Shahidul Alam, Director General of BMET, told UNB that 102,863 (1 lakh 2 thousand 63) workers were provided clearance to go abroad in November 2021, by far the highest in a single month since the start of the pandemic. Also read: Supreme Court rules against immigrants with temporary status According to BMET numbers, 35,732 workers were cleared to go abroad in January 2021, followed by 49,510 in February and 61,653 in March. However, during the second wave of the pandemic in the country, the number of migrating workers decreased due to the reimposition of lockdown in April, dropping to 34,145 and then even further to 14,200 in May.

The Supreme Court appeared ready Monday to prevent thousands of people living in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons from applying to become permanent residents. The justices seemed favorable, in arguments via telephone, to the case made by the Biden administration that federal immigration law prohibits people who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status from seeking “green cards” to remain in the country permanently. Also read: Immigrants cheered by possible citizenship path under Biden The designation applies to people who come from countries ravaged by war or disaster, protects them from deportation and allows them to work legally. The case pits the administration against immigrant groups that contend federal law is more forgiving for the 400,000 people who are TPS recipients. Many have lived in the U.S. for many years, given birth to American citizens and have put down roots in this country, their advocates say. Also read: Biden to prioritise legal status for millions of immigrants The Justice Department says it is maintaining a position held consistently for 30 years by administrations of both parties. President Joe Biden supports changing the law to put TPS recipients, among other immigrants, on a path to citizenship. Legislation that would allow people who are here for humanitarian reasons to adjust their immigration status has passed the House, but faces uncertain prospects in the Senate. Also read: Trump halts new immigration green cards, not temporary visas Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the court should be “careful about tinkering with the immigration statutes as written,” especially when Congress could act. “But just kind of big picture, why should we jump in here when Congress is very focused on immigration?” Kavanaugh asked. The case turns on whether people who entered the country illegally and were given humanitarian protections were ever “admitted” into the United States under immigration law. Justice Clarence Thomas said “they clearly were not admitted at the borders. So is that a fiction? Is it metaphysical? What is it? I don’t know.” The case before the court involves a couple from El Salvador who have been in the country since the late 1990s. In 2001, the U.S. gave Salvadoran migrants legal protection to remain in the U.S. after a series of earthquakes in their home country. People from 10 other countries are similarly protected. They are: Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Bangladesh High Commissioner to Malaysia Md Golam Sarwar on Saturday said they have taken a number of initiatives with digital platforms like “Chakrir Khoj” to help migrant workers get rid of any middlemen or agents making the entire process transparent and getting jobs without any hassle. “There’ll be no scope of fraudulence or getting cheated (by agents). We’ll remain careful always so that no one gets cheated,” he said while exchanging views with the members of Diplomatic Correspondents Association, Bangladesh (DCAB) virtually. Deputy High Commissioner Mohammad Khorshed A Khastagir and officials from various wings of the High Commission also spoke at the programme. The Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur recently launched the job portal “Chakrir Khoj” at a virtual event. Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Imran Ahmad, MP attended it as the chief guest while State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam, MP was the special guest.

Immigrants cheered President Joe Biden's plan to provide a path to U.S. citizenship for about 11 million people without legal status, mixing hope with guarded optimism Wednesday amid a seismic shift in how the American government views and treats them.

After a long and agonizing wait, the parents of Bangladeshi expatriate youth Mohammad Rayhan Kabir, who caused a stir in Malaysia by speaking out on a crackdown on undocumented immigrants in an Al Jazeera documentary, finally received their son with tears of joy on Saturday.

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump’s effort to end legal protections for 650,000 young immigrants, the second stunning election-season rebuke from the court in a week after its ruling that it's illegal to fire people because they're gay or transgender.

Ulises García went from being a waiter to working at a laundromat. Yelitza Esteva used to do manicures and now delivers groceries. Maribel Torres swapped cleaning homes for sewing masks.