ASIANS FEELING UNWANTED
Visa crackdown is turning the American dream into a nightmare of uncertainty for many Asians living in Donald Trump’s America.
For Jan, the night of Nov 8 last year was terrifying. The 20-year-old Mindanao-born Filipino had gathered with several of his undocumented peers in Flushing, New York, to watch the votes being counted for the US presidential election. When it became certain that Donald Trump would win, the atmosphere of despair in the room was palpable.
“You could really see the disappointment and frustration in people’s faces,” Jan recalled. “But I tried to think, oh well, let’s hope it gets better. Maybe it won’t be that bad.”
Today, that hope has largely faded as Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants, and the raids and deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), grab headlines.
“I became a lot more cautious ... lying low. I just go to school and go to work, that’s pretty much it,” Jan murmured. “The stuff that [Trump] says and the policies that he puts up. ... It’s terrifying for an undocumented person.”
Jan is one of the 11 million immigrants living in the US without legal status, of whom 1.3 million are from Asia. They live in fear of being deported.
Before and since the election, Trump has stressed that he will take sweeping measures to send back “illegal” immigrants, while tightening the border against people who legally enter with tourist visas, work permits and other plan for a wall on the Mexican border and a travel ban against people from Muslim-majority Middle Eastern nations.
But the 17 million Asian-Americans, including those born in the US — who represent 6% of the US population and a third of immigrants — worry that they may be the next target in a country where immigration has long been a driving force behind social and economic dynamism.
In Los Angeles, which has one of the highest immigrant populations in the US, Trump’s policy shift has sent shock waves throughout various ethnic groups. In early March, wary immigrants filled the office of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (Chirla), as they sought legal assistance from the non-profit organisation.
“Before, we were helping with only two to three applications per week. Now we’re handling 30-40 per day,” said communications director Jorge-Mario Cabrera. Applicants have mainly been Hispanics, but now “we are seeing interest from Filipinos and Chinese people”, he said.
For the first 100 days of the Trump administration, Chirla has been offering free legal support to immigrants wanting to become US citizens, and the results have been beyond expectations.
On March 6, several hundred immigrants flocked to a preview screening of Chirla’s latest educational film, America: I Too. The dramatic narrative, based on real events, shows law enforcement detaining undocumented immigrants on the street and at a clothing factory. It explains their constitutional rights that prevent deportation. The film features a Korean immigrant, along with a Hispanic and an African, and offers subtitles in Korean and Chinese.
Indeed, though Hispanics constitute the majority of the 11 million undocumented immigrants, the number from Asia has grown much faster than from Mexico and Central America in recent years, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Indians, Chinese and South Koreans lead the list.
Deportation is nothing new. More than 250,000 Asian immigrants were deported under the Barack Obama administration.
According to Karin Wang, vice-president of Asian Americans Advancing Justice in Los Angeles, the difference now is that the Trump administration’s interpretation of “deportable immigrants” is much broader.
EVERYONE’S A TARGET
“Under Obama’s eight years, they did not go door to door and just randomly,” Wang said. “Now, they’ll pick up anybody they can, and if you don’t have paperwork to show that you are legitimately a citizen or a green card holder, you’re likely to end up in detention. Even people who are citizens have been detained.”
Indeed, there were multiple reports of US citizens being detained at major airports even as Trump’s “travel ban” was being blocked in the courts.
That spells problems for a broad set of immigrants and non-citizen residents from Asia — which can inconspicuously but persistently shackle business and economic activity.
“What bothers people is the uncertainty of the process and the feeling that anyone can be targeted next. You never know,” said Gagan Deep Singh, a green card holder of Indian nationality.
Singh, who is married to an American citizen, lives in New York with his two children. As a relocation specialist, however, he travels abroad frequently. A Sikh, he often wears a turban, which is often mistaken for Muslim attire. “The sense of unwelcoming is really bad for business and for the economy as a whole,” Singh said.
Also affected by Trump’s sweeping measures are Asian students studying in the US — exceeding 600,000 and making up the largest group among the total of 1 million.
Sukyung Chun, a Korean double-bass player studying music at the University of Southern California, is one of them. “I was planning to perform at a big concert in Hokkaido, Japan, in late March, but had to give up because of Trump,” she said. Her student visa needed renewal around that time and she chose to avoid the risk of not being able to re-enter the US.
However, Chun says she is nevertheless in a much better position than her undocumented friends. “They even stopped driving for fear of violating a traffic rule and being deported.”
Following Trump’s travel-restricting executive orders, universities across the US issued warnings to their international students to avoid leaving the US. For them, Trump’s policies are a serious cause for alarm.
At New York University, some 15,000 international students make up over 20% of the student body — among the highest in the US. Chinese, South Korean and Indian nationals top the list. “We are concerned about the message this order sends to the rest of the world,” said Josh Taylor, a Global Programmes representative for NYU.
Some worry that as America closes its doors to talent from abroad, prospective students will choose to go elsewhere.
There are already signs. In a survey conducted in February by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, four out of 10 US colleges reported fewer international applications.
The broader economic impact cannot be ignored either, given that international students contributed US$36 billion to the US economy in 2015, according to the US Department of Commerce. Not only do they bring in funds from sources outside of the US, such as family assistance from their home governments or universities; they also bring international perspectives to classrooms and bridges for longer-term business relationships.
BRAIN DRAIN
“Are we a nation that educates the world’s best and brightest in our universities, only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us?” Obama famously asked in 2014 when announcing his immigration reform.
The situation now looks even more dire, as the Trump administration seeks to squeeze the spigot for H-1B visas, for specialty occupations such as engineers.
“Well, it’s America’s internal policy and I can’t really do anything about it,” said Arjun Venugopal, an Indian student pursuing his master’s degree in manufacturing engineering at Wayne State University in Michigan.
But he is certain about one thing. He used his student visa privilege to work in his field of study, and got jobs at major global manufacturers, including the US branch of the German chassis maker ZF. “At the end of the day, someone else in the world is going to give me a job. The US will miss out on me — and my skill set,” he said.
Tel Ganesan, an entrepreneur in Detroit, is an example of how immigrants can play an important part in revitalising a local economy.
The immigrant from India, whose passion for cars brought him to Detroit, was granted an H-1B visa upon joining Chrysler, after obtaining a master’s degree. He worked there for 13 years and became an American citizen.
In 2005, he struck out on his own and launched his own business. “I always had the entrepreneurial bug in me,” he recalled. The new business — a staffing company that supplies IT experts and engineers — started with two employees. Now the company, Kyyba, employs almost 700 people globally at its operations in the US, Canada and India, with annual revenue of over $60 million.
In Michigan alone, the company has created close to 500 jobs, Ganesan said. “That’s a lot I contribute to the local economy, right? And most of them are people born in the US.”
Recently, he started two new businesses — a venture fund focusing on medical devices and healthcare information services, and a business accelerator.
“America is the land of immigrants. It is the land of opportunities, and it’s a land of entrepreneurs. And that’s what makes America strong and great,” he said.
Ganesan, who noted that the US is now even experiencing “reverse immigration” to fast-growing Asia, poses this question: “Are we going to risk the next Google or Facebook coming out of somewhere else? Or do we want to invent them in the US?”
“At the end of the day, someone else in the world is going to give me a job. The US will miss out on me — and my skill set” ARJUN VENUGOPAL Indian graduate student