“Now, in 2025 we find a new America under Donald Trump solving the problem of Immigration and Birthright Citizenship. I had found a need for this Trump approach to these two issues in 1992 itself, when I visited America. In the new world order, where globalisation impacts every country, it is best to adopt the policy enforced by the West-Asian countries — UAE and Saudi Arabia — in the matter of Immigration and Birthright Citizenship. Such a policy would not only ensure the security of the country but also the needed productive workforce.”

In 1992, my wife and I went to America along with our two teenage sons. It was like we being in a wonderland. On return, after 40 days sojourn visiting friends and relatives and seeing Washington DC and New York City, I wrote a book titled “America: An Area of Light” with a                                       Foreword by Prof. C.D. Narasimhaiah (CDN).

Fortuitously, yesterday when a publisher came to see me his eyes fell on this book and our talk veered to America and naturally Donald Trump. Later I decided to browse through the book and found my observations of America as an Indian. I thought I must share it with my readers. Here I go 1992:

The adventurous fortune- seekers may land in this land of opportunities legally or illegally for whatsoever reason. It may be for prosecuting further studies; under an exchange programme in the field of arts, literature, sports, science and research; as tourists with six months visa or as wet-backs as shown in the film “Borderline” with Charles Bronson in the lead.

Once they land in their El Dorado, they pursue with determination and a little help from a local agent or a lawyer one goal — the goal of getting an immigrant status and secure the all-important Green Card that goes with it. This will enable him to work in the US as an immigrant as long as he wants.

Otherwise, he will need a work permit to stay in States. Usually it takes about five years of continuous stay in US before one is entitled for this passport to heaven called the Green Card. Once he gets it he will celebrate the occasion as if it is his second birth in a rich man’s house !

Now the Green Card holders need not run for cover or look for a hide-out on seeing a Police or an Immigration Officer. He no longer needs to leave his house before sunrise in the morning to his (illegal) work and return clandestinely after dark. He also need not keep changing his place of residence in order to give slip to the prowling officers.

In Twin Lake where we were staying, I was witness to a pathetic sight while watching a house being constructed. There were about fifteen Spanish speaking Mexican workmen busily engaged in different kinds of work when suddenly a huge car pulled up and Immigration Officers ran into the work-spot. In no time the workers took to their heels and ran helter-skelter in different directions while the officers gave them a hot chase. I saw them picking up three unlucky ones and driving away.

Later I learnt they were all illegal immigrant labourers hired by the developer of that housing colony because the wages are very cheap, just about 3 dollars an hour compared to about 5 dollars an hour charged by the US citizens and Green Card holders. That is the glory of having a Green Card and that is the reason why a person, who succeeds in getting a Green Card after a long wait, walks around like a proud cockerel.

Now the Green Card holder can return to his mother-land not so much to see his mother as to find a bride. And what sort of a bride? Most preferably a doctor, medical doctor please!

Chances are he will get one no matter he is a screw-driver engineer or a male nurse or a lab technician or a pizza specialist or a shop supervisor (in simple words salesman in a mall) or merely a mower of lawns or washer of dishes.

Being merely a Green Card holder he may have to wait a while before he could take his newly acquired possession to the land of riches. If he were to be an American citizen this delay and painful separation for a few months or a year could be avoided.

Anyway, once he gets his spouse, he will raise a family of two or more children in the process simultaneously producing two or more American citizens. In US one is an American citizen by virtue of being born there. Probably this is one of the reasons why these Indian immigrants do not send their pregnant wives for delivery to India while they are anxious to attend to their dental and health problems in Indian hospitals which they find cheaper compared to America.

Now with an American citizen in the family, he indeed feels proud and also secure.

However, he once again journeys to his mother-land. But this time for sure to see his mother (or mother-in-law) and ostensibly to show her the new heaven — America. The old woman too is not too reluctant either to accept her son’s (or son-in-law’s) offer. For a moment the old, tradition-bound Hindu woman is ready to cross the seas and commit the sin that such crossing would entail as prescribed in the scriptures. It was only later the poor lady, left alone in the house, cut-off from the outside world, staying put in the house, realises that after all she is there only for the sake of children as a baby-sitter.

In a household where both husband and wife work babies are really a problem and to get someone to do the baby-sitting means a lot of money (at even a minimum wage of five dollars an hour).

Once I asked my friend in New York what his brother was doing in Boston where I was planning to go. Without batting an eyelid, he said: “Housewife.”

I thought he had misheard me. “Yes, yes. I have heard you right,” he said and continued, “What would you call a person who stays at home looking after the house and the children?” I had a hearty laugh and told him that he had made his brother a sort of Ardhanareeshwara. Economic and family wisdom lay in the husband who earned a low salary staying back at home instead of having a baby-sitter.

Indians are also rapidly gaining in political influence. The gains in size and influence are no mean accomplishments, considering the fact that the history of uninterrupted Indian immigration to the US is barely three decades old. Note the word ‘uninterrupted’. No discussion of this topic can afford to ignore the pioneers in the field — the adventurous Sikhs who settled in California in the late 1890s.

Indians began to arrive here in any significant number only in the sixties. The first arrivals were mostly students. When they completed their education, they found their high qualifications and calibre greatly in demand in this country which was then at the peak of its prosperity. They decided to stay behind. Remember the ‘brain drain’ we heard a lot about in the ‘sixties’? True, they were among the best doctors, engineers and scientists India had at the time. Only the best could manage to gain admission to institutions of higher learning and training. Those who arrived then and stayed on now belong to upper echelons of American society, educationally and income-wise.

Large-scale Indian immigration to the US began only in the seventies. Unlike in the sixties, those who came this time were an assortment of all types: merchants and traders; hoteliers and motel owners; students and teachers; musicians and dancers; priests and swamis — the list goes on. For the last mentioned, the priests and swamis, it was much easier to get in than for others. They were the beneficiaries of a very humane and civilised provision in the American law that allows immigration of “certain practicing Ministers whose services are needed by a religious denomination in the United States.” Even agnostics and atheists have exploited this provision by suddenly turning to God and putting on religious robes.

Very often, it is their obligations to the family that compel them to go through the compunctious experience of seeking citizenship. The US law, it may be noted, allows citizens and immigrants to sponsor certain categories of their relatives for permanent residence in the country.

Many in India and around the world are aware of this well-intentioned provision in the immigration law. They are aware of the fact that marrying a US citizen is also the surest and quickest way of attaining immigrant status. And many citizens have been taken for a ride by such cunning people. Some of the frauds do get exposed, but by the time they do, the fraudulent party will have been well-established in the country. He or she will have found other ways of evading punishments. The usual punishments for marriage-for-visa crimes are imprisonment and deportation.

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