By Sushil Kutty
United States President Donald Trump has a pile of “vows”, one to get Gazans to vacate bombed-out Gaza for a Riviera in its place. Another to end birthright citizenship to children born to foreign workers in the USA. Trump is a hated figure in Gaza and Trump isn’t popular among Indian immigrants in San Jose, California.
Needless to say, Trump is a pain in the ‘you know where’ of millions upon millions of immigrants aiming for American citizenship. President Donald Trump is a stubborn man with a highly egregious agenda.
Trump’s executive order banning birthright citizenship was blocked by two US federal judges and faces stiff opposition across geographies. But Trump being Trump says the executive order will be back! Just like Arnie in the movie ‘Terminator’. Indians in the US on H-1B visa and the “O-visa’ are worried stiff.
The stress is like carrying two pebbles in the armpit. Indian immigrants Neha Satpute and Akshay Pise are all over the media, cursing Trump’s interference in matters that he should be ashamed to be involved in. Their deadline for their “issue” is February 26 and Trump’s deadline for the ban on birthright citizenship is February 20.
Both Satpute and Pise are engineers on H-1B visas. Will their “son” be born American? San Jose could do with plenty more birthright citizenship born to Indians employed in America. Indians with H-1B are living on a diet of hope. Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi enlighten President Trump?
Prime Minister Modi is on a two-day trip to the USA. Will Modi raise the topic of the Trumpian stunt? Modi and Trump are buddies. The only problem is, Indians don’t trust their Prime Minister to speak his mind. ‘Modi hai toh Mumkin hai’ is a ‘desi urban legend’ with no substance or credibility to it.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar should bring up the subject. Prime Minister Modi is like the skeleton in the “Why did the skeleton not cross the highway?” story. “Because he didn’t have the guts”, a feeling millions of Indians, who are the second largest group of immigrants in the US, will take home to bed if Modi refuses to even mention the issue.
The backlog of Indians waiting for American citizenship runs up to a massive 4 lakhs and will take years and years, in many cases an entire lifetime, for the precious nod. President Trump is an odd fellow, one with Elon Musk on H-1B visa but ‘DOGEs’ ‘birthright citizenship’.
Trump should know that the two have to go together. The Indian in the DOGE Vivek Ramaswamy should have stayed around. But the fact is Musk and Trump sound and act like ‘White supremacists” and Ramaswamy was the odd man out. Also, President Donald Trump is a glutton for owning strips, and broad swathes of foreign land, but is against giving ‘birthright citizenship’ to children of immigrant workers.
If President Donald Trump, the descendant of immigrants to the USA, could qualify for US citizenship, why can’t a kid born to foreign parents born in the USA under his watch? Does Prime Minister Modi “have the guts” to take up the issue with President Donald Trump and seek an acceptable solution?
President Trump’s executive order banning illegal immigrants was within the United States’ rights. But children born to legal entrants into America should be spared the ignominy of being denied the right to be born in America. For that is what President Trump is telling the newborn. Truly, Donald Trump is a pain in the ‘you know where.’
Trump’s wrench in the spokes will result in heart-wrenching stories. The haunting worry is what if a higher court reverses the orders of the two federal judges? Trump is a stubborn man. On January 20, the day Trump took over as POTUS, Trump renamed an Alaskan mountain, the highest in North America, against the wishes of Native Americans living in its cold shadow.
Mount Denali, meaning ‘Big One’ in Native Indian lingo, was renamed ‘Mount McKinley’ after a President of the United States, who was assassinated and belonged to Ohio. President McKinley had never set foot in Alaska, but Ohio’s politicians’ wouldn’t take no for an answer.
President Barack Obama returned ‘Denali’ to the mountain, but President Trump re-re-named it back to Mt. Mckinley, denying Native Americans of Alaska their legacy of thousands of years. Is President Donald Trump a ‘White Supremacist’? The answer is, Trump is no different from a number of other ‘White Presidents’, from President Thomas Jefferson to the current one.
Read up on ‘Injun History’– unfortunate people, the original inhabitants and largest landowners of ‘North America’, who were reduced to petitioning foreign immigrants for “birthright citizenship” in the continent, they were living for over 30,000 years! That should explain why President Donald Trump is going rogue on established traditions. The New York property developer, progeny of immigrant parents, is denying ‘birthright citizenship’ to children born to foreign workers.
Does Prime Minister Narendra Modi have the guts to talk about the “looming uncertainty” facing Indian immigrants to the United States? What would be Noorie Khan’s nationality if she’s denied birthright citizenship? But Noorie was born in November 2024, well in advance of Trump’s February 20 deadline. And when Adam Khan comes of age, perhaps the skeleton will have the guts and will cross the citizenship highway, maybe courtesy ‘Ai’. (IPA Service)
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