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. T ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Early life

Bhargava was born in

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. His family emigrated to the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

borough,

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

, 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 ...

fan." He attended

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

, 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. While ROTC graduate officers serve in all branches o ...

presence, and graduated summa cum laude in 1990.

Advocacy career

Bhargava began his career at

ACORN The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

, 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 C ...

, was arrested outside of the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

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 was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

to reduce deportation of undocumented immigrants in 2012. In 2019, Bhargava joined the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies 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 a liberal organization, based in Washington, D.C., that engages in anti-poverty advocacy. Overview The National Women's Law Center was established in 1972 as a project of CLASP. Alan ...

* Discount Foundation *

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is an American grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the s ...

* League of Education Voters * Bauman Foundation * National Immigration Forum Action Fund In 2024, Bhargava left the Center for Community Change and became the president of Freedom Together Foundation https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/activist-to-foundation-leader-jpb-s-deepak-bhargava-to-deliver-lightning-bolt-to-philanthropy/ar-BB1juu97(formerly JBP Foundation)

References

;Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bhargava, Deepak 1968 births American nonprofit executives CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies faculty Harvard College alumni Immigration activism Indian emigrants to the United States Living people People from Bengaluru Activists from Washington, D.C.