Clarke welcomes pardon of Trinidadian immigrant rights advocate Ravi Ragbir

Caribbean-American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke has welcomed the pardon of immigrant rights advocate Ravi Ragbir by former President Joe Biden.

Ragbir, a Brooklyn resident, was convicted of a nonviolent offense in 2001 and had faced the threat of deportation.

Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, thanked Biden for his “moral and just decision to issue Ravi Ragbir his long-deserved, long-awaited pardon.

“At a time when immigrants across America are fearing for their futures in this country, it brings me great relief to know one of their most devoted champions will be permitted to continue his critical work that has, for years, bettered their lives and furthered their equitable treatment under the law,” Clarke, the newly-elected chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told Caribbean Life.

“Despite suffering more than two decades of inhumane instability and uncertainty at the hands of our nation’s broken immigration system, Ravi never wavered in his fight to ensure every immigrant in America is treated with the fairness, dignity and respect they deserve,” she added. “Truly, his career has been defined in his unyielding advocacy and efforts on behalf of the rights of all immigrants across America.

“I was proud to serve as a longtime leader in the national movement to secure his pardon, just as I am proud today to say we have succeeded in that essential mission,” Clarke continued.

“As Mr. Ragbir begins his next chapter, free from persecution and free to continue the critical work that has improved the lives of countless individuals and families in this country, I look forward to witnessing the new heights he can achieve unburdened by this hardship that has too long loomed above his head,” she said. “I thank him for his service to our nation’s most vulnerable communities, and I pledge to always stand at his side and the side of our immigrant neighbors when injustice threatens their American Dream.”

In pardoning Ragbir, Biden noted that he was sentenced to two years and six months in prison, and that, since his release, he has advocated for vulnerable immigrant communities and families in New York and New Jersey.

Previously, Ragbir served as the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, an interfaith network of congregations, organizations and individuals that support immigrant communities.

Biden said Ragbir has received numerous awards, including from the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island.

“Advocates, religious organizations, and lawmakers commend his efforts to promote justice and human dignity,” Biden said.

Clarke has also welcomed Biden’s post-humous pardon of Jamaica’s first national hero, Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

On the birthday of slain American civil rights leader, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and a day before the next President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, was inaugurated in Washington, Biden said he was exercising his clemency power by pardoning five individuals, including Garvey, and commuting the sentences of two individuals “who have demonstrated remorse, rehabilitation and redemption.

“These clemency recipients have each made significant contributions to improving their communities,” Biden said.

Clarke, who, over the years, has been in the vanguard in seeking Garvey’s exoneration for a 1923 conviction for mail fraud, expressed delight and gratitude with Biden’s pardon.

Just last month, Clarke and several of her congressional colleagues wrote a letter to Biden urging Garvey’s exoneration.

“As we approach our nation’s observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I’m extraordinarily grateful for President Biden’s action today to posthumously grant clemency to a true national hero of Jamaica, the Most Hon. Marcus Garvey,” Clarke told Caribbean Life.

She noted that Garvey was a Jamaican-born, Pan-Africanist leader, who led one of the earliest Black Civil Rights movements in the Americas, and founded one of America’s first Black-owned shipping companies in the Black Star Line.

The congresswoman said Garvey had “established a legacy that has persisted to this day.

“His advocacy for civil rights and the economic advancement of the Black community built the foundation of our modern civil rights movement and influenced many of our civil rights leaders, including Dr. King, who described Garvey as ‘the first on a mass scale and level to…make the Negro feel he was somebody…the first man of color in the history of the United States to lead and develop a mass movement,’” Clarke said.

She noted that, in 1923, US President Calvin Coolidge had commuted Garvey’s sentence for mail fraud.

“However, it is no secret that Black people in America have always been subjected to a different standard of justice,” Clarke said. “Although granting Mr. Garvey’s clemency will help remove the shadow of an unjust conviction and further the Biden administration’s promise to advance racial justice, Mr. Garvey’s family, myself, and countless others across our nation and around the world will continue to push towards his full and unambiguous exoneration.

“We know that Mr. Garvey was falsely convicted of a crime he did not commit. We know the path forward must include congressional action to completely exonerate the Hon. Marcus Garvey,” she added.

“And so, I will continue to take all necessary action to clear his name, and to deliver the justice and closure his descendants rightfully deserve,” Clarke continued. “Today was a very significant step towards victory, but the fight for equity and justice goes on.”

Nzinga Garvey also told Caribbean Life: “In the words of my grandfather, Marcus Garvey, ‘The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself, but the ends you serve for all, in common, will take you to eternity’.

“These words are more than a call to action; they are a moral compass, pointing us toward the kind of justice that dignifies not just the individual, but a people, a nation and humanity itself,” she said. “My grandfather’s conviction was not only a miscarriage of justice but a reminder of how the overreach of power can be weaponized to silence the voices that seek fairness, equity and accountability.”

Nzinga Garvey said her grandfather’s life was dedicated to “uplifting humanity, urging us all to embrace a vision of justice that is larger than any single race or nation.

“His wrongful conviction is not just a story of the past, it is a reflection of the work that remains before us,” she said. “It underscores the deep need for a justice system that protects, not prosecutes, those who dare to inspire and empower.

“This posthumous pardon of Marcus Garvey is about more than his name; it is about reclaiming the soul of a nation that believes in fairness over fear, in dignity over division, in righting the wrongs of history so we can face the future with integrity,” she added. “Let us prove that we are a nation not afraid to confront our past, because we believe so deeply in building a better future for every one of us.”

Garvey (1887-1940) had sought to unify and connect people of African descent worldwide.

In the United States, he was a noted civil rights activist, who founded the Negro World newspaper, a shipping company called Black Star Line, and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).

In 1922, Garvey and three other UNIA officials were charged with mail fraud involving the Black Star Line.

On Jun. 23, 1923, Garvey was convicted and sentenced to prison for five years.

He appealed his conviction, claiming to be a victim of a politically-motivated miscarriage of justice, but it was denied.

In 1927, Garvey was released from prison and deported back to Jamaica, where he continued his political activism.

Eight years later, he moved to London, where he died, in 1940, after several strokes.

Garvey’s body was interred in London in view of travel restrictions imposed during World War II.

However, in 1964, his remains were exhumed and taken back to Jamaica, where the government proclaimed him Jamaica’s first national hero and re-interred him at a shrine in the National Heroes Park.

In pardoning Garvey on Sunday, Biden noted that Garvey had “created the Black Star Line, the first Black-owned shipping line and method of international travel, and founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, which celebrated African history and culture.

“Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described Mr. Garvey as ‘the first man of color in the history of the United States to lead and develop a mass movement,’” he said.

“Advocates and lawmakers praise his global advocacy and impact, and highlight the injustice underlying his criminal conviction,” Biden added.