A Well-known Fact: Donald Trump walks along the US-Mexico border on August 22, 2024 | Photo: Getty Images A Well-known Fact: Donald Trump walks along the US-Mexico border on August 22, 2024 | Photo: Getty Images

As the new American president is to take oath on January 20, the debate on immi­gration is raging in the country with shades of legaljpwinner gaming, illegal, undocumented and refugee crisis. It is happening in a country that is made of immigrants, a country where not a single president is a native American if we take the debate back to just a few hundred years. A country that wages war in the name of upholding democracy has contribu­ted to a situation where people migrate from these places and are trying to reach to the US. Rather than taking responsibility for these unintended consequences, the leaders of the oldest democracy have always toyed with the immigrants using them to create divisions in the society. A paradoxical situation for the superpower in the 21st century where they support the wars, but fail to take the responsibility for the damage it does.

Those who are new to American history or do not want to acknowledge the history of the European immigration to the new country forget that the original citizens of the United States of America are the native Indians or what the immigrants called them in the beginning—Red Indians, now a derogatory term.

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BY P.A. Krishnan

As we know that history is always shaped by the victors and in the battle for America, European or more precisely British settlers won and made a new country named USA. Since then, all and every kind of immigration to this new country has been encouraged or discouraged depending on who is in power.

From the First World War, people have flocked to this country from everywhere: war ravaged ruins of France, Italy, Germany to South America, India, China and many other countries. The countries ravaged by USA in the name of democracy got special treatment in terms of visa—countries like Japan, Korea, Vietnam and more recently the refugees from Afghanistan. Most of the European immigrants came to the US during and after the World Wars. Post-1945, the US was engaged in various wars in the name of democracy, and immigrants from these countries flocked to the so-called citadel of free market, freedom of expression and, of course, democracy—be it Korea, Vietnam or Iraq or the more recent war in Afghanistan and Ukraine. These wars—started, fuelled or supported by the US—resulted in migration from those countries to the US.

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In the last few years, as the war ended in Afghanistan, a number of refugees came to the US. According to the 2022 census, the Afghan diaspora is around 2.5 million. With this, add the economic migrants from other parts of the world, especially China and India from where a lot of software professionals come and work in what is known as the tech industry. A limited war is raging in Ukraine and in Gaza and there is migration from these places. The refugees from Ukraine are welcome in the US, whereas it is difficult for any Palestinian to find refuge because of the complications in their status.

In the last few decades, with the rise in identity politics, migrants have become the hot potato. The country needs these immigrants as an important workforce, and at the same time, hates them as some of them believe that they are taking up the jobs meant for Americans.

The new President-elect Donald Trump is well known for his stand on illegal immigration and wants to put an end to it by deporting the undocumented immigrants. The Pew Research Center put the number of undocumented immigrants in the US at around 11 million in 2022. It was at its peak in 2007 at 12.2 million. After 2019, the numbers went down. The debate on illegal immigration is more of a moral or philosophical debate. The supporters of undocumented immigrants argue that as a champion of democracy, the US should allow people to come and settle in the country, especially those who flock to the US-Mexico border, as many of the South American countries have largely despotic regimes. The other part is the refugees coming from countries where the US has engaged in wars such as Afghanistan, and now in Ukraine—though the US is directly not engaged here—but a lot of refugees from Ukraine end up coming to the US.

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Outside this moral debate on immigration are the legal migrants, who struggle every day in their workplace spending their life embroiled in the documentation to stay in the country. Behind the curtain of a great American life lies a dark picture of day-to-day survival under the sword of work visas. For clarity, if a qualified engineer from India who comes on a H1-B visa to the US applies for a Green Card—a kind of residency permit where he can work for any company—today, he/she will get the permit after 100 years. A person on H1-B visa can lose work any time and have only 60 days to find another job. In the volatile capitalistic system where companies vanish in months, this is a nightmarish scenario.

There are stories where people had to leave this country on short notice when there is layoff in tech industry. Hardly does any developed country have such a long wait for a residency (Green Card) like it is in the US. Last week, some of Trump supporters targeted the H1-B visas arguing that it is hurting the American citizens in the job market. Similarly, the OPT (optional practical training after education in the US) is also targeted. Right now most of the software professionals are worried about what is going to happen in the next few months.

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Surprisingly, most of the leaders, including Trump, had supported the valid visa programmes. In an interview with the tech industry bigwigs in October 2024, Trump said that he is in favour of giving Green Cards to the students who graduate from US universities as the US needs sharp minds who can work and innovate in the US. His staunch supporters, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have also argued for an ease in visa rules for qualified individuals. Then why is the wind suddenly blowing against legal immigration.

The answer is complex. A majority of undocumented immigrants are from the South American countries who work in the farmlands of America. In the US, if one watches carefully, then it should come as no surprise that most of the sanitation workers, low paying jobs such as workers in the kitchen, cleaners, people doing menial jobs are immigrants and many of them are undocumented. The US economy depends on them. If one day all the undocumented immigrants leave the US, the country’s economy will collapse as there will be very few people left to do these jobs.

Since Trump’s win, the small and big businesses hiring these immigrants have realised that if undocumented immigrants are deported, it will be a nightmare, and then suddenly, some twitter posts appear that turn the heat on legal immigrants coming to the country on H1B visas.

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For the new president, immigration will be one of the toughest challenges to handle as he had made it one of his priorities. If what he says is to be believed, then undocumented immigrants will be at risk, but as we know, in politics, things change rapidly. The debate from undocumented and illegal immigration changing to the legal immigration attests that life for anyone who is not on a residency permit (Green Card) in the US is full of uncertainty at this moment.

Trump who has married a first-generation immigrant also threatened that the rules regarding children born in the US becoming citizens is also going to change, and this adds to the trouble for many as it is also a way for many undocumented individuals to acquire citizenship. Trump has promised a lot of things, but all eyes will be on his decisions on immigration.

(Views expressed are personal)

Jey Sushil is a bilingual writer and translator. His most recent book is a memoir named Dukh Ki Duniya Bheetar Haijpwinner gaming

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