Email Gov. Kathy Hochul: #KeepShakoureHome—Grant Shakoure clemency now

In February 2021, Pascal Shakoure Charpentier was released from Bergen County Jail where he spent 219 days under threat of deportation to a country in which he has never lived. Our collective community effort to pressure ICE worked, and ICE released Shakoure.

Now, in 2023, Shakoure needs our help again as DHS has begun imminent deportation proceedings against Shakoure.

Shakoure has applied for a pardon which is now pending at New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office. A pardon will end Shakoure’s removal proceedings and keep him home with his family and community. His application has the support of friends, family and community members, professors, and faith leaders who have been personally inspired by Shakoure's story and leadership.

Shakoure's community wants him home but only Gov. Hochul has the power to end Shakoure and his family’s suffering by granting him a pardon.

Let's ensure Shakoure stays home for the holidays—and for good.

Email Gov. Hochul and the Executive Clemency Bureau to demand clemency for Shakoure NOW. It's up to use to ensure we #KeepShakoureHome.

Read Shakoure's full story below:

On July 6th, 2020, ICE officers showed up at Pascal Shakoure Charpentier’s door and arrested him. Despite being a U.S. citizen born on a U.S. Army base, he was been imprisoned by ICE because of a former conviction.

Shakoure is a Black Muslim youth mentor, business owner, friend, son, and brother from Queens. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is currently willfully withholding vital documents about Shakoure's U.S. citizenship from the court that could set him free.

Shakoure was detained as a result of Trump's "Enhancing Public Safety" Executive Order, which expands the priority list of people subject to deportation to include anyone who has ever “committed acts that constitute a chargeable criminal offense.” [1]

Shakoure's case illustrates the compounding effects of anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, and xenophobia in our carceral system. The felony that triggered Shakoure’s arrest is more than 30 years old and he has already served 24.5 years of prison time for it. DHS's withholding of documents that could prove Shakoure's citizenship highlight yet again that ICE's motivations aren't rooted in much more than anti-Black Islamophobia.

If Gov. Hochul grants Shakoure clemency, Shakoure can resume building his life after incarceration without the threat of being torn from his family’s arms. His fiancée and her two children will rest easy knowing that ICE officers will not invade their home and take their loved ones again. NY Governors have previously issued clemency to stop this type of double punishment before. We ask that they do it again so we can #KeepShakoureHome.

Sources:
1. Trump’s Immigration Executive Order Is A Blueprint For Mass Deportation, HuffPost, Jan 27, 2017
2. '"A Ticking Time Bomb': Advocates Warn COVID-19 Is Spreading Rapidly Behind Bars," NPR, 28 April, 2020

Email & demand Gov. Hochul pardon Shakoure

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Dear [recipient position will go here]  [recipient name will go here],

My name is [submission:values:first_name:nolabel] and I'm emailing to ask you to grant clemency to Pascal Shakoure Charpentier, a Black Muslim youth mentor and business owner from Queens. Shakoure faces deportation based on two incidents that occurred when he was just eighteen years old.

Since his release from incarceration in 2015, Shakoure has contributed positively to his
community. He founded two digital media businesses, Transcendence Media (in 2015) and Showcases 3D (in 2021). He is engaged to a heroic U.S. citizen nurse, who was on the frontlines fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City and serves as a father, caregiver, and friend to her two U.S. citizen children.

Given Shakoure’s life spent in New York, his strong claim to U.S. citizenship, the circumstances of his criminal record, and the incredible contributions he has made to his community, Shakoure merits a pardon. A pardon will provide Shakoure crucial relief from permanent separation from his U.S. citizen parents, fiancée, stepchildren, extended family, faith community, and friends who love him dearly. Shakoure has already faced an unimaginably long incarceration and he should not face a double punishment and permanent family separation through deportation.

We know you believe that people can transform and grow. When you signed the Clean Slate Act in 2023, we saw a governor that wants to ensure that New Yorkers with criminal convictions can still have a bright future. Shakoure is an extraordinary person who clearly merits a pardon.

We request you exercise your clemency power to pardon Shakoure and keep him home. Please stop the deportation of Pascal Shakoure Charpentier, our son and brother, a man engaged to a heroic COVID-19 nurse, a mentor to at-risk youth, a business owner and startup founder who has lived in the U.S. his entire life. Help keep him with his family by granting him clemency today. Thank you.

Sincerely,
[your name will go here]
[your email address will go here] [your location will go here]

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