Raja Says Trump Has Normalized Hate, Including Against Indians

India-West News Desk

WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D- IL), co-chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus’ Immigration Task Force, has accused the Trump administration of fueling anti-Asian and anti-Indian sentiment while warning that restrictions on legal immigration could weaken US competitiveness.

Krishnamoorthi made the comments in the latest episode of CAPAC Chair Rep. Grace Meng’s ‘Spill the Tea with Chair Meng’ video series.

Discussing what he described as a rise in anti-Asian and anti-Indian hate, Krishnamoorthi said Trump had encouraged fears of people viewed as outsiders.

“Donald Trump, as soon as he came into office, really played on people’s latent fears of the ‘other,’ whoever they were,” Krishnamoorthi said. He said the trend had “metastasized over ten years into almost a normalization of hate,” including hostility toward Chinese Americans during and after the COVID 19 pandemic and toward Indian Americans.

Krishnamoorthi also criticized the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for H 1B visas, arguing that the policy could discourage highly skilled workers from coming to or remaining in the United States.

“Our competitiveness depends on attracting the very best talent on earth. Whether it’s people from India or China or Sweden, it doesn’t matter,” he said.

Krishnamoorthi said H 1B workers fill critical technology positions in the US economy and argued that imposing what he described as a $100,000 tax on the group could drive talent away.

“When you put this … $100,000 tax on this group of people who, by the way, fill some of the most exquisite technological roles in our economy … you’re basically pushing these people away in the first instance and then probably getting people here to rethink whether they should stay,” he said.

The episode also includes Krishnamoorthi’s views on the broader impact of attacks on legal immigration and his reasons for remaining optimistic about the country’s future.