Deepak Bhargava is an immigration reform advocate and until 2018 was the executive director of the nonprofit

Center for Community Change Community Change, formerly the Center for Community Change (CCC), is a progressive community organizing group active in the United States. It was founded in 1968 in response to civil rights concerns of the 1960s and to honor Robert F. Kennedy. Th ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Early life

Bhargava was born in

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. His family emigrated to the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

borough,

The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, where he grew up and became, in his words, a "ferocious

Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

fan." He attended

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

, where he opposed

Reserve Officers Training Corps The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. Overview While ROTC graduate officers serve in all ...

presence, and graduated summa cum laude in 1990.

Advocacy career

Bhargava began his career at

ACORN The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne ...

, where he served as legislative director and spokesperson. He joined the Center for Community Change in 1994 as the director of public policy. In 2000, he directed the National Campaign for Jobs and Income Support coalition of grassroots groups working on federal welfare law. Bhargava became executive director of the Center for Community Change in 2002. Much of Bhargava's work at CCC has focused on immigration reform. He brought together immigration activists and helped launch the

Fair Immigration Reform Movement The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) is a grassroots movement that supports comprehensive immigration reform and the civil rights of immigrants in the United States. It was started in 2004 by the Community Change, formerly The Center for Com ...

, was arrested outside of the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...

while protesting immigration law in 2011, and was credited for having convinced President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

to reduce deportation of undocumented immigrants in 2012. In 2019, Bhargava joined the

CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies The CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies (also known as CUNY SLU) is a public undergraduate, graduate, and professional school in New York City associated with the City University of New York system. Founded in 2018 as an outgrowth of the Jo ...

as a Distinguished Lecturer of Urban Studies. Bhargava has served on the boards of: *

Center for Law and Social Policy The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) is an American organization, based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for policies aimed at improving the lives of low-income people. History The Center for Law and Social Policy was founded ...

* Discount Foundation *

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a Grant (money), grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the wo ...

* League of Education Voters * Bauman Foundation * National Immigration Forum Action Fund

References

;Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bhargava, Deepak Living people Indian emigrants to the United States Indian gay men American LGBT people of Asian descent Harvard College alumni CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies faculty People from Washington, D.C. American nonprofit executives 1968 births 21st-century Indian LGBT people