[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 159 (Wednesday, September 26, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1305]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  RECOGNIZING MAUNICA STHANKI FOR HER SERVICE TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY 
                               COMMITTEE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JERROLD NADLER

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 26, 2018

  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise, along with Subcommittee on 
Immigration and Border Security Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren, to thank 
Maunica Sthanki for her service to the Judiciary Committee.
   Maunica has served as a counsel for the Committee since 2014. During 
this time, she has been a passionate and dogged advocate for women and 
children seeking asylum, for refugees from Syria, Africa, and other 
war-torn regions--indeed for all immigrants who come to America seeking 
a better life for themselves and their children.
   For Maunica, immigration and protection of the most vulnerable is 
personal. While her family's story in many respects began in Uganda in 
the 1970s, it is an American story. In 1972, Ugandan military strongman 
Idi Amin issued an order expelling Asians living in the country. Her 
father, one of approximately 60,000 persons of Indian descent in Uganda 
at the time was left stateless. Her mother, who had a U.K. passport, 
was able to move to England. But thanks to America's generosity and a 
Jewish charity, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, her mother and father 
were able together to resettle in the United States. Like so many 
immigrants before them and immigrants who would come in the decades 
that followed, Maunica's parents came without much more than the 
clothes on their backs and settled in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where 
Maunica would be born.
   Maunica attended Baton Rouge Magnet High School, one of the 
Southeast's most competitive public schools, Louisiana State 
University, and the University of Texas School of Law. She began her 
career in law representing migrants and children along the border, and 
became a professor of clinical law at the University of the District of 
Columbia, imparting to others her passion for the rule of law.
   Maunica began her work for the Committee in 2014 just as we were 
experiencing an unprecedented increase in the number of unaccompanied 
children arriving at our Southern border. Within days she was 
responsible for organizing a congressional delegation to visit with 
parents in detention, children and adults in crowded Border Patrol 
stations, and attorneys on the ground. Maunica's advocacy skills and 
unbending sense of justice during that summer steeled her for fights to 
come. She became an advocate for ending family detention and a defender 
of laws that ensure that children have the opportunity to apply for 
asylum in the United States. That these laws remain on the books is a 
great tribute to Maunica's commitment.
   After the Paris bombings of November 13, 2015, Maunica knew 
immediately that the U.S. refugee program--an ocean away and with an 
extensive vetting process-would be subject to the same xenophobic 
attacks that followed 9/11 and were the very reason she became an 
immigration lawyer. She, again, fought to preserve asylum and refugee 
protections--laws that set the standard around the world and provide a 
safe haven to the most vulnerable irrespective of their faith, 
ethnicity or nationality.
   In January 2016, when the first Executive Order banned travel to the 
United States for citizens of several Muslim-majority countries, she 
recognized it as what federal courts would later declare it to be--a 
Muslim ban so infected with racial and religious animus that it could 
not stand. Perhaps, again, it was personal. Maunica's husband, a man of 
Muslim faith, has dedicated his life's work to combating bigotry as a 
prosecutor with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
   Earlier this year, when the Trump Administration began separating 
children from their families, Maunica worked tirelessly to help draft 
the Keep Families Together Act, legislation to end family separation at 
the U.S. border. Her expertise made the legislation stronger, and her 
passion and commitment led 190 Members of Congress to cosponsor the 
legislation. Together, we mounted a campaign to stop the policy and 
reunite children with their families. Work that continues today. We 
thank her for her dedication and compassion to helping others.
   Maunica is a vegetarian because of her faith, and as her daughter 
would tell you because animals are our friends, and she is also a rabid 
LSU football fan. She is an irrepressible spirit who has made great 
sacrifices to serve the Committee.
   We wish Maunica Sthanki the very best in her future endeavors and 
thank her for her outstanding service to the Committee and our country.

                          ____________________