WASHINGTON: The Cambridge City Council in Massachusetts state has become the second city in the United States to pass a resolution against the recently enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).
It is notable that some of the world’s premier educational institutions like Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are part of it.
Cambridge, which is part of Greater Boston on Tuesday passed a unanimous resolution calling India to “uphold” the country’s secular constitution, reported Al-Jazeera.
“It has come to the attention of the city council that on December 11, 2019, the Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which for the first time uses religion as a criterion for Indian citizenship,” the resolution said.
The move came a week after Seattle City Council passed a similar resolution, urging India to repeal the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and stop the NRC.
The two resolutions came ahead of US President Donald Trump’s first visit to India later this month.
Excluding Muslims, the CAA seeks to provide Indian nationality to Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, Jains and Buddhists fleeing persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh on or before December 31, 2014.
Since the enactment of the legislation, dozens of unarmed anti-CAA Muslim protestors lost their lives in a brutal police crackdown.