A strange, unexpected meltdown happened on US social media last week, The Indian-Americans face alarming racist attacks and this happened soon after President-elect Donald Trump started making his team announcements, and the social media war involved expat Indians and some Indian users of X and Instagram. False accusations and plain racist social media attacks on Indian immigrants in the US took place, which were totally unprovoked by Indian-origin Americans. This is Quick Take, Two unrelated incidents happened. An illegal migrant, not a South Asian, burned alive a woman on a New York subway.
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How Indian-Americans Face Alarming Racist Attacks?
Almost all of America was shocked. The outrage about illegal immigrants, which had been an election issue, snowballed into some non-existent threat of swamping of high-tech and top jobs by skilled immigrants. Donald Trump named Indian-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author Shriram Krishnan as senior White House policy advisor on artificial intelligence.
A section of American conservatives swamped social media with anti-India racist tweets.
Following a post by an ex-user who wrote, did any of you all vote for this Indian to run America? Ro Khanna on X wrote, you fools criticizing Shriram K as Indian-born, criticize Musk as South African-born or Jensen as Taiwanese-born? Ro Khanna is an American politician and a lawyer, serving as the US representative from California’s 17th congressional district since 2017. Bay Area venture capitalist David Sachs tweeted, Shriram has been a US citizen for a decade. He’s not running America. He’s advising on AI policy. He will have no influence over US immigration policy. These attacks have become crude and not in the holiday spirit. I’m signing off now. Have a Merry Christmas.
Jagdish Bhagwati
Economist and educator at MIT and Columbia, Jagdish Bhagwati once described Indians as the new Jews in America. Being the most successful ethnic minority in US and now occupying positions in the Trump cabinet, this community is coming in for some racist tweets. The online tsunami of tweets began on an impending menace of H1B techies flooding the US who will take away American jobs.
Illegal immigration was in focus during the election, and many had thought that Trump would prioritize tackling the estimated 16 million undocumented individuals in the US as a first, and that might exclude appointments of colored Americans. However, the first indicators seem to give the impression of an egalitarian approach. Among the persons of Indian origin now in Trump’s cabinet are Shriram Krishnan, Senior Policy Advisor on AI. Vivek Ramaswamy, Co-Lead, Department of Government Efficiency. Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Jai Bhattacharya, Director, National Institute of Health. Kash Patel, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tulsi Gabbard, not of Indian origin but a practicing Hindu, Director of National Intelligence.
H-1B visa
On the visa front, experts suggest that Trump’s administration may favor faster residency pathways for STEM graduates i.e. Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and those graduates with advanced degrees through the H-1B visa route.
Indians make up the majority of H-1B visa holders. In 2023, Indians received 72.3%, which is 2.79 lakhs of the total 3.86 lakh H-1B approvals. Chinese workers held a mere 11.7%. The program is heavily tilted towards computer-related roles, which accounted for 65% of H-1B visas in 2023.
Conclusion
However, the new administration could tighten hiring rules for foreign workers, giving tax benefits to those who hire Americans, which could impact visa seekers. Indian immigrants and Indian-Americans are leading in innovation and entrepreneurship in the Silicon Valley. The American President-elect and his advisor Elon Musk know this.
This social media war is not going to lessen. There will be several waves of meltdowns as Trump appoints people of mixed race or first-generation or second-generation immigrants to his team.
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