The Outrider
Outlook|November 11, 2024
The shift in Kamala Harris' immigration policies reflects the national mood against illegal immigrants
Mohammad Ali
The Outrider

MEMORY is rather an inconvenient thing for politics. Not long ago, I remember, Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, was known as a champion for immigrant rights in the Senate, and even later during her 2020 presidential bid. At the time she, like her party, embraced an unequivocally pro-immigrant stance. They defined their immigration platform in opposition to the policies of former President Donald Trump’s first term—separating families detained at the border, a travel ban on Muslim-majority countries and efforts to gut the asylum system among them.

In 2020, when Harris was campaigning to get the party nomination, I was dating a left-leaning American activist who would particularly talk about the immigrant-friendly positions Harris took to allow undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses, qualify for free tuition at some universities, or even public health insurance under a universal plan.

I moved to the United States in 2018—a year after I got death threats in India for my reporting. As someone who had gotten a scholarship to attend Columbia University’s journalism school, it was my second and last year in the US on a student visa. I had no idea what I would do once the visa expired. I was totally new in the country and wasn’t sure if I would get a permanent job that could offer me an H1B1 sponsorship. But I looked at the US as my refuge.

Anxious as I was about my uncertain visa situation, listening to Harris was heartwarming for me. Not that I was thinking of becoming an illegal or undocumented immigrant, but I had told myself that I would not go back to India.

هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 11, 2024 من Outlook.

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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة November 11, 2024 من Outlook.

ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.

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