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'There are 725,000 Indians here without proper papers. They are subject to deportation immediately under this (Trump's immigration plan). Immediately!'
'They want to prevent new immigration, get the people who are already here out of here, and only allow population increases in the white population.'
Shekar Narasimhan has fought a hard campaign on Kamala Harris's behalf.
The co-chair of the Democratic National Committee's Indo American Council, and chair of AAPI Victory Fund, a PAC (political action committee), which wants more Asian Americans and Pacific islanders in elected offices, admits the race is yet close, and puts it down to the ability of Donald Trump's campaign to push their narrative.
Narasimhan, who has worked with Democratic presidential elections since 2004, and who influenced President Biden's agenda, spoke to Rediff.com US Senior Contributor P Rajendran about the closeness of the November 5 election and what it augurs for the United States.
The concluding segment of a two-part interview:
Kamala Harris has been focusing a lot on Trump, right, and because of other pressures on the economy. But for some time the abortion issue had fallen by the wayside.
There's been some angst that I've heard expressed that she should focus on some issues rather than others, whichever issues are important to those people.
Do you think a change of strategy -- or a different strategy -- may have produced a better outcome?
No, no, not at all. I mean, she was in Houston, the largest rally of the entire country, 30,000 people, one million signed up to go. And it was primarily about reproductive choice.
What she was trying to do by going to Texas was to say this is the dystopia that we're going to live in. Look what they did to women's rights.
It was a national rally, so millions of people watched it. And, you know, having Beyonce doesn't hurt, right, to get a national audience? As they say in pretty simple English, you have to walk and chew gum at the same time.
You can't do one thing and say, oh I should have just done one of that. No, no, not at all.
[The Trump team wants] to talk about the economy and the border. We should actually spend a lot of time talking about the economy because it's actually doing well.
It just isn't doing well for everybody. And there are ways to fix that, you know.
That's what she has been talking about: How do we improve it so that it works for everyone.
But starting with, "We're in the tank, life is terrible and we're in the garbage can." Nonsense.
This is the best economy we've seen happen. We have the lowest unemployment rate on a consecutive basis for 30 months in the history of the United States.
This is not an economy in the tank. We do need inputs to make sure that it is fairer and ensures more jobs, that more people benefit from it, and that we reduce the cost of living.
No question.
She has put out plans to do all that. She has put out substantive policy proposals.
[Meanwhile he repudiates his advisers who put any out, like Project 2025, and nobody takes him on and says, what is your plan?
[I ask] you keep saying I'll reduce inflation, but how are you going to do this? So how can we be better on the economy?
By removing taxes among other things, he said.
Yeah, how will that do that? That will only create more disparity in wealth and probably more inflation. So it's just so clear, his plan is tariffs, taxes, and immigration.
Let's talk about all three of those. Taxes he's cutting, but primarily for the rich and for large companies, not for you.
Trade, he's going to put tariffs on. They will simply cause prices to go up.
Then immigration. If he actually executes a plan to stem it, to then start deportation, it will create massive issues with many industries, including farming and construction, shortages of labor, About private health.
Twenty Nobel Prize economists wrote a paper that took his ... great economic plan and said we will be in a recession within six months.
So what else do I have to tell you. That is not great for the economy? Well, if you're not listening and you only live in the Fox News ecosystem, I can't change your mind because you're not listening to me.
You did mention that the narrative of the other side of you is very strong and gets across better than the more even-handed news that the mainstream media, or even the left wing media, put out.
Yes, correct. So nobody wants to listen to anything that's substantive. It takes a while.
And he refused to do another debate. She knows that if she goes toe to toe with him, people see the contrast.
A contrast, for example, in that last debate, which gets missed a lot is, we are talking about health care.
She was talking about how to strengthen health care access. The reporter asked him, so what's your plan for health care?
And after trying 80 times to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, he says, we have concepts. How does that work for the average voter? You care about having access to health care today.
"I have concepts, I've thought about it for nine years. I still have some concepts that I'm not going to share with you, by the way."
So there's no debate about the fact that they are bereft of ideas. It's just egocentric one-man rule. And here you have someone who's substantive [while] putting it on the table.
So I don't know how to win that argument.
You said deportations could cause massive issues, but they have kind of done that the last time they were in power.
While it may have caused those problems in certain places there doesn't seem to be much of a difference in the plan itself.
So if there are deportations, how will say Indians -- including those born in India -- be affected, the people on H-1Bs, green card holders and the naturalized citizens?
So there are three levels. There are 725,000 Indians here without proper papers. They are subject to deportation immediately under this. Immediately!
They could be friends of yours, they could be your parents, they could be your household help, they could be anybody.
It could just be somebody who overstayed a visa.
Let's go to the green card holder. There is something they tried to install in 2019 called the public charge rule.
It says even if you have a green card, to get citizenship you must prove that you never took any money from the public trough.
If you did, even inadvertently if I'm mistaken, you could be denied citizenship.
Now let's go to, finally, those who are in the queue to get a green card.
[Trump advisor Stephen Miller] announced [programs] called denaturalization and decertification.
They are willing to go back in the record and find out if you did something in your prior life and say you are no longer eligible for your visa.
You are no longer eligible even if you are a citizen for citizenship.
Their objective is to make America, again, predominantly white and keep it so.
It's still predominantly white. But the demographics have been telling them that over the next 30 years, it will gradually become more black and brown. They want to stop that.
The best way is to prevent new immigration, get the people who are already here out of here, and only allow population increases in the white population. That's it.
I don't see any other plan in their minds, because it will destroy the economy while they are doing it. It will completely corrode America's standing in the world.
When people start coming in busloads and plane loads from America after living here 10 years or 15 years, it will destroy the economies of those countries, it will destroy the economies of the United States.
The United States standing in the world will go down to zero.
It won't be what these people claim is strength and power.
It will be what an incredibly stupid job, an incredibly inhumane job the United States is doing as a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world.
But they don't care. That's not their objective. The objective is not building America standing in the world, the objective is to make sure that America remains a white nation for as long as possible.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com