Point of View: To Leave or Not Leave Trump’s U.S. 2.0
Many Americans want to flee, which is contrary to wanting to fight. However, those who think the opposition is resigned to Trump’s return to power may be in for a surprise when the ultranationalists and ultraloyalists get to work on his administration’s draconian initiatives. We’ll see how it all plays out.
Seventy years ago, the U.S. Border Patrol announced that it had deported over a million migrants during Operation Wetback, a derogatory term used for Mexicans. Will history repeat itself, though on a larger scale and involving more nationalities? Millions of people are living in dread as they wait to find out more after Donald J. Trump is sworn in as the next president on January 20, 2025. Ironically, 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark Immigration and Nationality Act, which opened the door to non-Europeans who had been shut out of the U.S.
About two weeks after Kamala Harris lost the election, I saw this startling headline in Newsweek: “Nearly Half of Los Angeles Residents Consider Leaving the U.S. After Trump Win.” It was startling because, unlike the visceral negative reaction to Trump’s narrow victory in 2016, the public response in 2024 has been strikingly muted among anti-MAGA citizens.
A third of New Yorkers felt the same way as Angelenos, and the article also said that younger folks were more eager to leave the country than older people. But whether they’re young or old, how many Americans will act on this desire and head for the exit? For various reasons, most of them will realize, if they haven’t already, that their dream of leaving is . . . well, a dream. Uprooting themselves will be unrealistic. They’re mainly expressing shock, dismay, and sorrow at Trump’s re-election. Their wish to leave is their protest.
I’m also a resident who is fantasizing about leaving the U.S., if not actively planning to relocate. When I mentioned to a progressive Democrat that I wanted to move to India, though I’m not an OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) yet, he was horrified. “No, no . . . we need folks like you here for the resistance!” he said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t the activist type. Or maybe I was embarrassed. Nobody should take democracy for granted, especially now.
Another friend, a Californian and my former classmate in India, wasn’t impressed when I told her about my wish. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP still in power, she pointed out, the idea of living in our native land didn’t have much appeal for her.
I could see her point. Whether we live here or there, the respective nation’s Dear Leader will be inescapable. In India last year, while the closest I got to the PM was when we saw gun-toting soldiers outside his residence, I could sense his presence everywhere, from television screens in living rooms and billboards on roads to tacky cardboard cutouts near national monuments. The PM was visible even on the Vande Bharat Express, where a continuously running film clip on a monitor showed him presiding over the inaugural departure of this celebrated train. The other passengers paid no attention to it, but I was mesmerized.
Cults, be it religious or political, are just as potent in advanced industrialized nations. In the U.S., as we wait for the 47th president’s inauguration, we have to brace ourselves for the sequel to the movie we endured when the 45th president was in office, from January 2017 to January 2021. The sequel, not surprisingly, will be harder to stomach.
I realize that I’m speaking from a position of privilege. Being a naturalized U.S. citizen, like my friend in California, I don’t have to deal with uncertainty and anxiety. Others are not so lucky, whether they’re documented or not. Those who crossed the U.S. border without authorization, or didn’t leave the country before their visas expired, are in danger, even if they’ve lived here for decades and are productive, tax-paying members of society.
Criminals have been singled out for immediate deportation, but that doesn’t mean employed, law-abiding residents with visa issues won’t be living in fear. Most distressingly, Dreamers, who’re shielded by DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), may be at risk, although they’d been brought here as children and had no say in their parents’ decisions. Trump seems willing to work with Democrats on this issue. Those who were granted asylum or TPS (Temporary Protected Status) could face a new reality. And birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s 14th amendment, may be axed.
Even those on valid nonimmigrant visas, such as H-1B and F-1, will be watchful. In fact, numerous American universities have urged their international students to return to the country from their winter break before Trump is sworn in.
Only once, in all the years I’ve lived in the U.S., was I asked to show my ID because of my appearance. It happened when I was on an F-1 student visa. Another Indian and I were sitting in a Greyhound station, waiting to board the bus that would take us to my university, when a police officer approached us. Our student IDs satisfied the officer, who nodded and walked away without saying another word. Although I carry a driver’s license now, I’m not taking chances. I intend to make a copy of my U.S. passport and keep it in my wallet.
Isn’t America, as John F. Kennedy famously put it, a ‘nation of immigrants’? It is, but it’s a ‘nation of xenophobia’ as well, according to historian Erika Lee, the author of a book titled America for Americans. Lee notes that “just as racial progress and racist progress can happen at the same time, Americans’ embrace of immigrants and their fear and hatred of them have coexisted as equally strong forces shaping the United States.”
I may find it practical to remain in the U.S. for the next four years, but I’ve realized that I’ll be living in a different country, a country that’s been transformed by the 2024 election.
Murali Kamma is the managing editor of Khabar. A slightly different version of this column appeared in The Quint, a news and opinion media outlet based in New Delhi, India. Email: letters@khabar.com
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