Indian-Americans take up key positions on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON: In another marker of the continued rise in influence of Indian-Americans in US politics, the five representatives from the community in House of Representatives — Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ami Bera, Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna and Shri Thandedar — will serve in key positions on some of the most sensitive Congressional committees dealing with China, intelligence, armed services, immigration, and homeland security.

Krishnamoorthi, elected representative from Illinois, has become the top Democrat on the newly formed select committee on strategic competition between the US and Chinese Communist Party. The committee will assess and investigate the multidimensional political, security, technological, economic and strategic threat from China to American interests and make recommendations.

Democrats have picked Bera, a representative from California, as a member of the House intelligence committee, charged with providing oversight of all intelligence activities. Bera, who is also a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and played an important role in leading Congressional efforts on the Indo-Pacific, said that this was a time of “increased threats, both at home and abroad”.

Jayapal, the head of the Democratic progressive caucus and a representative from Washington state, will take over as the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration, integrity, security and enforcement, which has jurisdiction over immigration law and policy, naturalisation, border security, refugee admissions among other issues. She was the first South Asian woman elected to the US House of Representatives, is one of only two dozen naturalised citizens in the Congress, and will be the first immigrant to occupy the position in the committee.

“I came to this country when I was 16, alone, and with nothing in my pockets. After 17 years on an alphabet soup of visas to become a US citizen, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to live the American dream, a dream that is out of reach for too many immigrant families.” Jayapal said she would make it a priority to reshape America’s “broken immigration system.”

Khanna, representative from California, will continue to serve on the House armed services committee, agricultural committee and oversight and reform committee.

And Thanedar, the newest Indian-American Congressman in the House from Michigan, has become a member of two committees, on homeland security and small business.

Raja Krishnamoorthi