Green card holding parents of citizens of Indian origin working in the US, be they naturalised citizens of the USA or green card holders themselves, often spend six months in India during the salubrious season, i.e., October through March, which also coincides with the great Indian festival season. Unbeknownst to many, their visit to their motherland is also to escape intense winter in large parts of the USA. This time around, when they returned to their home away from home, they were subjected to the kind of humiliation reserved for felons—sign the form volunteering to surrender your green card, or else you cannot enter. Remember, these senior citizens in the autumn of their lives are perfectly harmless, unlike some of the students of Indian origin, who have been deported for sympathising with the Palestine cause. To be sure, they may not be contributing to the US economy as workers or earners, but their presence revitalises and reassures their working children, besides impelling them to expand the family budget. In other words, to the extent the family spends more on such ageing parents, the US economy benefits. Therefore, the Trump administration should take both a humane and pragmatic view of their silent, passive but harmless and comforting presence instead of taking umbrage at it. In any case, their sponsors, i.e., their children, undertake to meet their expenses, including for medical. The shoe does pinch for the family, which has made the US its home and contributes to its growth, done in by such insensitivity and high-handedness.
Instead of bearing down upon them, the Trump administration would do well to ask them to become citizens. India, after all, gives its ex-citizens, as it were, from select countries, including the US, the facility to hold dual passports, so to speak. Armed with such a dual passport, they enter and exit India and the US at will. Their umbilical cords won’t be severed from their motherland. Their hearts would continue to flutter with a touch of patriotism for their motherland despite losing their voting rights.
POTUS Trump is all set to roll out the Trump Gold Card with a hefty price tag of $5 million, entitling its buyer first to the green card status and, in due course, to the citizen status. It is a brilliant move, the one that beckons moneybags to make the US their home and nurture its economy. The losers most likely could be Bitcoins of the world and Swiss banks. Both could witness depletion, as the wannabes will have to rustle up moolah to get the coveted US citizenship. In a way, therefore, Trump is wooing what is suspected to be illegit money for a more productive use in the interest of the US economy.
The new H1B visa rules, too, are an honest attempt to rid itself of the lottery imagery it cynically engendered in the minds of its applicants. The initial registration period for the FY 2026 H-1B cap opened at noon Eastern on March 7 and runs through noon Eastern on March 24, 2025, and is done through the USCIS portal by the employers along with the passport or other unique travel documents, thereby precluding the pernicious practice of multiple applications for the same person affecting the chances of others in the queue.
The Trump administration’s heart is in the right place insofar as its anxiety to deport squatters, sneakers and nuisance makers is concerned. That is why the Indian government had to lump it when planeloads of Indian illegal immigrants were dumped in Amritsar by the US government. Both the USA and the UK are, in hindsight, realising the folly of open-door policy. India, too, has experienced the pain of illegal immigrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh. So, it can empathise with the Trump administration on this score. But what is not appreciated is looking down upon with suspicion even legal immigrants like green card holders. In a way, this is a kick in their pants in the sense they can no longer be the cat on the wall. They have to upgrade themselves to become full-fledged citizens, which they can apply for after clutching on to their green cards for five years. There is bound to be decisiveness on their part lest they land back on US soil from a foreign sojourn, angst-ridden with the proverbial sword of Damocles’ hanging over their heads at the immigration counter. In short, Trump is applying the squeeze on them to take a call without vacillating.
POTUS Trump’s xenophobia is of a different hue. Normally, it points to the fear of foreign people and things, lest the natives be out of business. The Republicans apprehend Hispanics from the bordering Cuba and Mexico entering the US on the sly, staying put and procreating. Their progenies become citizens at birth. President Obama coddled them by legalising their illegal entry on the sentimental ground that when their children are citizens, they themselves cannot be deprived of this honour. Trump has struck with an executive order dated January 20—immediately after his inauguration for a second term—aimed at restricting birthright citizenship in the US only to the newborns of US citizens, period. It has sparked several legal challenges and caused anxiety among immigrant families. For nearly 160 years, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution has upheld the principle that anyone born in the country is a US citizen. Birthright citizenship, or jus soli (right of the soil), is not the global norm, though the US is one of about 30 countries—mostly in the Americas—that grant automatic citizenship to anyone born within their borders.
In recent years, several countries have revised their citizenship laws, tightening or revoking birthright citizenship due to concerns over immigration, national identity, and the so-called “birth tourism”, where people travel to a country specifically to give birth. India, for example, once granted automatic citizenship to anyone born on its soil. However, concerns over illegal immigration, particularly from Bangladesh, led to restrictions. Since December 2004, a child born in India is only considered a citizen if both parents are Indian or if one parent is a citizen and the other is not classified as an illegal migrant.
Trump’s genuine-citizenship drive, which is of a piece with his slogan ‘America is for Americans’, is commendable, but it should not become a misdirected missile either by design or accident.
S Murlidharan is a freelance columnist and writes on economics, business, legal and taxation issues.
