Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump.
| Photo Credit: AP

Hindu American groups have applauded Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump for promising to protect the human rights of Hindus across the world, including the U.S. and Bangladesh and protect them from the “anti-religion agenda of the radical left.”

In his Diwali greetings on Thursday (October 31, 2024), Mr. Trump strongly “condemned the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians, and other minorities in Bangladesh”, which he said remains in a “total state of chaos.”

“It would have never happened on my watch. Kamala and Joe have ignored Hindus across the world and in America. They have been a disaster from Israel to Ukraine to our own Southern Border, but we will make America strong again and bring back peace through strength,” he said.

“We will also protect Hindu Americans against the anti-religion agenda of the radical left. We will fight for your freedom. Under my administration, we will also strengthen our great partnership with India and my good friend, Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi,” Mr. Trump had said.

Utsav Sanduja, founder and chairman of Hindus for America First, told PTI in an interview that they are very grateful to President Trump.

“I’m very grateful to President Trump, eternally grateful and eternally appreciative. It sucks that Kamala Harris hasn’t said anything about this issue. I think that there’s going to be a big change in this election coming from this,” Mr. Sanduja said.

HinduAction also thanked Mr. Trump for his statement.

“As you rightly pointed out, the situation of the Hindus in Bangladesh is precarious. Below is a summary head with regularly updated data on the atrocities against Hindus in Bangladesh,” it said.

“Thank you President Trump for showing moral clarity and unequivocally condemning anti-Hindu pogroms in Bangladesh,” said Indian-American Nathan Punwani.

“Trump is a great man and a great leader, full credit goes to him for wishing all the Hindus, Buddhists, and Jain Sikhs a very blessed Diwali. I think Trump really, really cares about these communities. He really understands what’s going on in Bangladesh. He sees the ongoing persecution of Hindus. He is concerned about religious minorities that are suffering right now in that country,” Mr. Sanduja said.

“He has done such a great favour to millions of Americans who are concerned about human rights issues. To deliver on Diwali, such an auspicious day, such a magnificent thing. I’d like to say that many of us in the Hindu community played a small part in persuading President Trump’s team, talking about this, giving briefings, and putting papers together,” he said.

“We are seeing that 60% of Indian Americans are supporting Kamala Harris. In the last election, I think 68% supported Biden. There’s a dip in support for the Democratic presidential candidate. Trump, last time around, had 22% of the Indian American community. Now he’s at 32%. This is according to Carnegie Endowment’s latest survey on Indian American attitudes,” he said.

“With this statement, it’s going to open up the eyes of more Indian Americans, Hindu Americans, and so on. They’re going to give President Trump the vote,” Mr. Sanduja said.

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks at Albuquerque International Sunport, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S. October 31, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Sending Diwali greetings, former president Donald Trump, who is the Republican presidential candidate, on Thursday condemned the attack on Hindus in Bangladesh, vowed to strengthen ties with India and described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his good friend.

Bangladesh, he said, remains in a total state of chaos and alleged that his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris and her boss President Joe Biden have ignored Hindus across the world and in America.

“I strongly condemn the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians, and other minorities who are getting attacked and looted by mobs in Bangladesh, which remains in a total state of chaos,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

This is for the first time that Trump has spoken on the issue of Bangladesh. Hundreds of Hindus were killed in July-August in Bangladesh when a students’ agitation turned into massive protests leading to then prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee the country on August 5.

“It would have never happened on my watch. Kamala and Joe have ignored Hindus across the world and in America. They have been a disaster from Israel to Ukraine to our own Southern Border, but we will Make America Strong Again and bring back Peace through Strength,” he said.

“We will also protect Hindu Americans against the anti-religion agenda of the radical left. We will fight for your freedom. Under my administration, we will also strengthen our great partnership with India and my good friend, Prime Minister Modi,” Trump said.

“Kamala Harris will destroy your small businesses with more regulations and higher taxes. By contrast, I cut taxes, cut regulations, unleashed American energy, and built the greatest economy in history. We will do it again, bigger and better than ever before and we will Make America Great Again,” he said.

“Also, Happy Diwali to All. I hope the Festival of Lights leads to the Victory of Good over Evil,” said the former president, who is in a close fight with Harris for the November 5 presidential elections.

With the U.S. elections to be held on November 5, both the Democrats and the Republicans have amped up their respective campaigns. Considered one of the most significant elections in U.S. history, tensions are high as the nation battles a cost-of-living crisis while simultaneously arming and aiding two wars happening in different parts of the world.

One of the major issues on which voters are deciding their mandate is immigration policy. A study by the Pew Research Centre showed that about six-in-ten voters (61%) today say immigration is very important to their vote. It is of particular importance to Republican voters specifically, as 82% of Donald Trump supporters say it is a very important issue compared to 39% of Kamala Harris supporters who think the same.

A look at how immigration policy has evolved in the U.S. over the years.

U.S. Presidential elections 2024: Key dates and events to note

Foundation of the melting pot

Before U.S. independence in 1776, the country was a colony of the British Empire. The U.S. War of Independence was mainly against the regressive policies of King George the Third who restricted trade and free movement. Thus, the U.S. Declaration of Independence, signed and ratified on July 4, 1776, states that King George “has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands”.

Therefore, the ‘population of states’ and ‘migrations hither’ are the foundations of the U.S. and intrinsic to its development and economic progress.

Moreover, the image of the U.S. as a beacon of light for people of all origins with the desire to make their own fortunes or require a safe haven from persecution, chaos or poverty in their home countries, has been emphasised over and over again. The Statue of Liberty, situated in New York, symbolises this sentiment. In its Museum, it is inscribed, “Give me your tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/ The wretched refuse of your teeming shore”. These words gain added significance when one realises that it is through the port of New York that a lot of immigrants from the ‘Old World’ entered into the ‘New World’.

Also Read | U.S. President Biden offers massive immigration relief to non-citizens ahead of election

Anti-immigrant hysteria

Post U.S. independence, keeping true to the spirit of the Declaration, free movement across borders was encouraged. Migration of labour was a necessity as the U.S embarked upon its nation building project.

However, while borders were open, in order to be recognised as a U.S. citizen, a certain set of rules were established, the first of them codified through the Naturalization Act of 1790. This Act was limited to only free White Christian men. It excluded women, indentured servants, non‐​whites, and slaves. Thus, while migration was encouraged, the privilege of citizenship was often withheld from a majority of groups. Even Native Americans, the indigenous people of the land, were not given citizenship till the Treaty of the Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830.

The U.S. experienced its first wave of mass migration in the 1850s, with the crippling potato famine in Ireland and the advent of the gold rush in California. While the sudden influx of primarily Irish and German immigrants did give way to anti-immigrant and especially anti-Catholic sentiment in some parts of the U.S., (the most famous manifestation of this being the Know Nothings party formed exclusively around these xenophobic views), their fervour did not last long.

Parallelly, during the Gold Rush in the 1850s, a lot of Chinese immigrants also entered the nation. These workers, often poor and vulnerable, were taken advantage of by industrial bosses and made to work in unsafe conditions for meagre wages. They were considered cheap labour and found employment as farmhands, domestics, laundry workers, and most famously, railroad workers. It was the Chinese Americans who built the Transcontinental Railroad in the U.S., one of the biggest reasons for its growth as an economic superpower.

However, the fact that Chinese immigrant labour was preferred due to their willingness to work for cheap caused direct competition with white labourers. This led to rioting and protests by the white labour class and trade unions who said the Chinese immigrants were taking their jobs. To quell the riots, the U.S. government in 1882, for the first time, brought in an immigration policy specifying a particular nationality — the Chinese Exclusion Act. It mandated a ban on Chinese immigration for 10 years. 

Post the 1870s, after the U.S. Civil War, the country witnessed yet another wave of migrants attracted by the rapid industrialisation. These migrants were mostly from the poorer countries of southern and eastern Europe such as Italy, Poland and Slovenia. As labour competition increased, native-born Americans were worried about the rising poverty and lack of education within these groups. These migrants were seen as reluctant to ‘assimilate into American society’.

Thus, competition in the labour market with Chinese and European immigrants, and fears of cultural isolation led to the U.S. Congress passing the Immigration Act of 1924. The Act introduced a quota system where visas were granted for 2% of the total number of people of each nationality in the U.S. as per the 1890 census. It introduced literary tests for incoming immigrants and increased the taxes collected from them upon arrival. The Act also banned immigration from Asia.

The period after the quota act severely restricted migration to the U.S. It was finally in the 1960s, with the advent of the Civil Rights movement, that the quota system for immigration was finally abolished with the Immigration and Nationality Act, 1965. It took out the nationality clause and opened the doors again for Asian immigration. Post 1965, immigration to the U.S. increased, particularly from Latin American and Asian nations. It also increased the number of illegal immigrants.

Also Read | Hanging on to the American Dream

The 9/11 effect

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda carried out four coordinated terrorist attacks on U.S. soil which killed 2,977 people. Subsequent investigations following the attack found that most of the 9/11 hijackers were able to obtain a visa from a U.S. consulate without detection. Moreover, some were in the country at the time of the attack with expired visas. This presented the U.S. government with the task of addressing both failures in intelligence and gaps in domestic immigration law. 

After the attack, U.S. Congress made significant changes to immigration law and policy. In 2002, the Congress passed the Homeland Security Act, which created the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by absorbing the Immigration and Naturalization Service as well as Customs. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was then formed under the DHS. It is the ICE that now primarily deals with border control and security vulnerabilities in immigration. 

Here we see both policy and perspective shift on immigration and more specifically illegal immigration. What was earlier a matter of economics, as illegal migrants were seen as burdening the State exchequer, had now entered the realm of national security. 

Such a conflation of one’s undocumented status with being a threat to domestic security can be understood by the remarks of former Attorney General John Ashcroft at a conference after the attacks, “Let the terrorists among us be warned: If you overstay your visa — even by one day — we will arrest you…. We will use all our weapons within the law and under the Constitution to protect life and enhance security for America.”

The 9/11 attacks can be seen as the beginning of the current hysteria around immigration to the U.S. Images in the media of ‘hoards’ or ‘swathes’ of immigrants at the U.S.-Mexican border often categorise them as criminals and within other undesirable categories. This is followed by claims of immigrants ‘stealing jobs’, ‘refusing to assimilate’, ‘free-loaders’ and so on; claims that we now know are not in any novel accusations.

The U.S. as a nation has become an economic superpower because of its immigration policy. Be it from William Colgate to the Chinese immigrants who built the Transcontinental Railways to Elon Musk, immigrants have made their mark in various fields and speeded up the process of industrialisation in the U.S.

It would be prudent for the U.S. to regulate immigration with policies which encourage safe travel and offer a path to citizenship.

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump sits inside garbage truck, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, U.S., on October 30, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, across a rain-soaked tarmac and climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.

The former president wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Mr. Trump’s supporters were “garbage”. Mr. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

“How do you like my garbage truck?” Mr. Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white shirt and red tie. “This is in honour of Kamala and Joe Biden.”

Mr. Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Mr. Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” Mr. Trump then seized on a comment Mr. Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

The president tried to clarify the comment afterwards, saying he had intended to say Mr. Trump’s demonisation of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.

Distances from Puerto Rican joke

On Thursday (October 31, 2024), after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Mr. Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.

He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Mr. Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologise to Puerto Ricans.

“I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. “I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”

A spokesperson for Mr. Trump said the joke doesn’t reflect his views, but the former president has not addressed it himself.

“I love Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico loves me,” Mr. Trump said from the garbage truck.

He ended the brief appearance by telling reporters: “I hope you enjoyed this garbage truck. Thank you very much.”

When he took the stage a short time later, he was still wearing the orange vest.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump traded bitter attacks while racing to woo the voters. File
| Photo Credit: AP

As the U.S. presidential race enters the last leg, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump traded bitter attacks while racing to woo the voters in key battleground states that could decide the outcome of the razor-tight contest.

On Monday (October 29, 2024), Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, addressed a rally at the McCamish Pavilion on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta where he rejected attempts by Democrats to compare him with the Nazis.

“The newest line from Kamala and her campaign is that anyone who isn’t voting for her is a Nazi,” he said at the capital city of Georgia.

Georgia is one of the seven key battleground states that could decisively swing the November 5 election in favour of either candidate.

“I am not a Nazi … I am the opposite of a Nazi,” the former Republican President said.

Mr. Trump also slammed Harris for calling him a fascist. “She is a fascist.” Following Trump’s Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, Harris’s campaign team likened it to a 1939 Nazi gathering at the venue.

In that rally, Mr. Trump also announced a slew of major policies, including on tax.

“I am announcing a new policy today that I will support a tax credit for family caregivers who take care of a parent or a loved one,” he said.

Ms. Harris on Monday (October 28, 2024) campaigned in Michigan, another battleground state.

At a rally in Warren, she highlighted how the Biden administration focused on creating more jobs in the State.

“He [Trump] is not working for or concerned about working people, middle-class people,” she said, training her guns on the Republican leader.

The US presidential race remained very tight with both Harris and Trump locked in a dead heat for the popular votes in most swing states.

The final nationwide CNN poll found this week that 47 per cent of likely voters support Harris and an equal 47 would endorse Mr. Trump in the elections.

In the final New York Times/Siena College national poll from October 20 to 23, the two aspirants are tied at 48%. The remaining four% are yet to decide on their preference.

A separate poll conducted by the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, showed that 44% of respondents trust Trump to handle the economy as opposed to 43 per cent for Ms. Harris.

An analysis by FiveThirtyEight poll tracker, however, showed that Ms. Harris is having a slight edge over Trump with 1.7 percentage points.

To win the race for the White House, the successful candidate will have to secure 270 of the 538 electoral votes up for grabs.

The seven key swing states which are seen to be crucial to determine the election results are Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nevada.

Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama gesture as they attend a campaign event for Harris at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Saturday.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

In an emotional speech in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Saturday evening, former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama called on men, undecided voters and those planning to sit up the election to vote for Vice President and Democratic candidate for the White House, Kamala Harris, warning them about the stark consequences of voting for her Republican opponent, Donald Trump.

Ms. Obama addressed a packed stadium prior to Ms. Harris’s speech at the Wings Event Centre in the city of just over 70,000 residents in the crucial midwestern battleground state.

Specifically addressing men, the former first lady described in vivid detail the consequences of tightening restrictions on reproductive rights, as she warned men that there would be a general decline in women’s reproductive health, causing a range of consequences, from women bleeding to death during childbirth to their mothers and sisters being affected by undetected cervical cancer.

Mr. Trump had boasted that, through his appointment of three Supreme Court justices, he was responsible for overturning Roe versus Wade, which broadly protected a woman’s right to an abortion. Following the overturning of this legal precedent by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022, a number of States have enacted or attempted to enact or have contemplated laws tightening access to not just abortions but in vitro fertilization (IVF) and contraceptives. Doctors and those helping a woman obtain an abortion could face criminal liability and jail time.

“This will not just affect women; it will affect you and your sons,” said Ms. Obama, directly addressing male voters.

“And look, I don’t expect any man to fully grasp how vulnerable this makes us feel or to understand the complexities of our reproductive health experiences. In all honesty, most of us as women don’t fully understand the breadth and depth of our own reproductive lives,” she added. Ms. Obama attributed this knowledge gap to a lack of research funding for women’s health.

“Because a vote for him is a vote against us. Against our health, against our worth.” she said, tearing up.

Ms. Obama said she wondered how the race could be so close, arguing that Ms. Harris was ready for the moment.

The former First Lady also wondered aloud why Ms. Harris was being held to a different standard from Mr. Trump. She pointed out that former Vice President Mike Pence and other former allies and Cabinet Ministers of Mr. Trump, including four-star generals, were not supporting Mr. Trump’s 2024 candidacy. Ms. Obama reminded the crowd that the former Joint Chiefs of Staff (Mark Milley) had described Mr. Trump as being “fascist to the core”.

 Ms. Obama asked why the public was “choosing to ignore Donald Trump’s gross incompetence while asking Kamala to dazzle at every turn”.

“I hope that you will forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behaviour, his obvious mental decline, and his history as a convicted felon. A known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse … all of this while we pick apart Kamala answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do you all,” Ms. Obama said.

The former First Lady reminded women who lived in households where the men did not listen to or value their opinions that their vote was a private matter. “You get to choose,” she said.

Michigan is part of the ‘Blue Wall’. These are states that Democrats have traditionally won. Mr. Trump won Michigan along with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2016, helping him win the White House. U.S. President Joe Biden won all three states in 2020.

With less than two weeks to go to November 5, Election Day in the U.S.,gender has increasingly emerged as factor in support for the candidates. Republican Candidate Donald Trump has been trying to capitalise on the support he has among men, focusing especially on bolstering his numbers among younger Black and Hispanic men.