Howdy mOdi + नमस्ते tRump = Screw Indians!

During my trip to India a few weeks after the Houston rally where mOdi toadied up to tRump, people were still talking about it.  Knowing my political perspectives, the extended family did not engage me on those issues.  To  friends who asked me about it, I said India should not trust tRump.  He will screw India at the earliest chance, I warned.

Most of India didn't worry much about tRump because the people who voted for mOdi share something deep and fundamental with tRump and his minions--hatred for Muslims.  That shared Islamophobia made mOdi and his toadies warmly embrace tRump, even if he didn't care a bit about the "shithole" conditions in most of India.

I have been worried about the two politicians selling hatred of the other so openly.  In a post in March 2016--when tRump was doing his warming up act in the primaries--I blogged that the largest democracies have mainstreamed hatred.

mOdi and his adoring Indian-American toadies believed that they could thread the needle through tRump's racism and xenophobia:

“Part of what makes it complicated for Indian-Americans is that they don’t like Trump for the most part and yet they like Modi,” Karthick Ramakrishnan, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside and the director of AAPIData.com, a policy research and data firm that focused on Asians and Pacific Islanders, told Power Up. “They bristle against the kind of nationalism that Trump represents here in America, but then they still support Modi regardless of what he is doing in India. So, there is some ideological inconsistency there, but that is the kind of complicated world that we live in.”

A few months ago--which in the age of the coronavirus seems like an eternity--tRump and his trophy wife went to India, and the mOdi gang put on quite a show.

They forgot the old story from Hindu mythology that a scorpion, however friendly it might seem to be, is a scorpion that will eventually sting you, even to death.

The scorpion did its thing.

The freeze on work visas (H-1) was the first sting.

Nearly half of a million H-1B visas issued between 2004 and 2012 went to Indians. Along with their dependants they accounted for more than a fourth of the Indian-American population, which is currently around 3 million.

And then came the regulations regarding international students.

This headline says it all about the Indian perspective in response:

Trump admn slams door on F-1 visa students whose institutes have moved to online-only mode

So, whatever happened to Howdy mOdi and नमस्ते tRump?

This news report refers to that special "friendship" between mOdi and tRump:

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) state chief and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to leverage his friendship with US President Donald Trump for the benefit of millions of Indian students studying in the US so that they are not made to leave the country.

Do these people know anything about tRump?  Have they not been following various reports on the narcissistic sociopath that he is?

Blinded by their Islamophobia, mOdi and his toadies failed to recognize that their brown skins are not welcomed by tRump.

He hates the brown-skinned.  His party hates the brown-skinned. And a good chunk of his party hates immigration, especially of the brown-skinned.

I.Told.You.So!!!

No immigrants please, we're Republicans

Remember this post from a few days ago, in which I quoted from an op-ed by a highly qualified Hong Kong native who was forced to exit the US because she couldn't get the work visa?  She wrote there:

America is losing many very skilled workers because of its anti-immigrant sentiment, and while this is a disappointing blow to me and my classmates, it will also be a blow to the United States’ competitiveness in the global economy.

Like all that really matters to the 63 million voters, right?  They are willing to cut their proverbial noses in order to spite all our faces!

More and more stories every day, which will gladden the 63 million voters:

Uncertainty in the United States has been a boon to Canada, which since the election has seen a surge in immigration and interest from tech workers and entrepreneurs.

What a wonderful approach to making Canada great again!

The number of tech workers from around the world migrating to Canada is on track to beat 2016’s total by 18%, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

Ouch!

The Canadian government has also laid the groundwork to make the region more tech-friendly, Tam said. There are tax incentives for companies that invest in research and development. Students who study at public Canadian universities are offered a path to permanent residency. And a new, fast-tracked worker’s visa established this summer allows companies to bring foreign talent to the country without having to go through the rigmarole of a lottery.

Seriously, have the 63 million voters thought through their approach to keep the immigrants out?  Do they really believe that keeping immigrants away will automatically making the country great?

Meanwhile, the market does what the market does.  It even figures out a backdoor and inhumane approach like the "Optional Practical Training, which allows foreign students earning degrees from American institutions to work in their field for a year after graduation":

The flexibility of the OPT program is one reason why its numbers increased 39 percent between 2014 and 2016, and why nearly two times more OPTs were approved than H-1Bs last year. With more than 300,000 OPTs currently working in the United States, according to the federal government, the program has become a key part of the tech industry’s efforts to recruit globally.

This is not always a good deal for the students--it is "white-collar indentured servitude" for many:

For every graduate who lands a job at Amazon, Intel, or Microsoft, many more end up laboring at small companies known as “body shops” that specialize in contracting tech workers for IT and software development roles at larger firms, usually for short-term projects.

Keep in mind that such abuse of labor in servitude that lingers in the shadows is what happened in the ag industry, hotel/restaurant industry.  Right?

Of the million or so foreigners studying at American universities, 16 percent come from India. At last count, there were more than 90,000 Indian OPTs in the United States—more than double the number in 2010.

The work visas become more difficult, while more go the route of OPT.  Works well for businesses and their shareholders, but a disaster for the worker bees.  But then, as the tax bill clearly shows, making America great again has really become making America's rich richer again!  So, the OPT abuse fits right in with this approach.

Yet for all the debate raging over H-1Bs, the OPT program—which has no enrollment cap—has flown under the radar to become the surer, bigger path for Indians to temporarily work in the United States. Recently, Pravin Rao, the chief operating officer of outsourcing firm Infosys, told India’s Economic Times that his company (which has secured thousands of H-1Bs over the years) was now “looking at hiring from more colleges in the US.” Instead of facing the scrutiny that goes with importing midlevel workers from India, it could use the OPT program to take advantage of resources already in the United States.

I am sure that 63 million voters are delighted with all these.

I won a green card through the #Diversity lottery & was just called *trash* by @POTUS. Since then Ive completed a PhD at @Harvard, became a fellow at @BrookingsInst & paid LOTS of taxes. I know many others who contribute a lot to this country. Oh well, perspectives... https://t.co/eTAfOKw0WB

— Dany Bahar (@dany_bahar) December 15, 2017