Hindu-Americans march on White House, demand justice for 200,000 ‘Legal Dreamers’

Protesters at the Feb. 4, 2018 rally for “Legal Dreamers” at the White House. (Photo courtesy of Republican Hindu Coalition)

Hundreds of Hindu-Americans marched to the White House Saturday and chanted their support for President Donald J. Trump and his immigration policies.

“The appropriate acronym of DACA should be DAICA–Delayed Action for Illegal Childhood Arrivals,” said Krishna Bansal, the national policy and political director for the Chicago-based Republican Hindu Coalition, which sponsored and organized the rally with the support of Shalabh “Shalli” Kumar and his family.

Kumar is the Indian-born billionaire, who founded the RHC and is the man, who led the RHC’s 2016 outreach to Hindu-Americans, which garnered for Trump 65 percent of their votes compared to the 16 percent of the Hindu-American vote received by the 2012 GOP presidential nominee former Massachusetts governor W. Mitt Romney.

President Donald J. Trump with Shalabh “Shalli” Kumar, the founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition. (Photo courtesy of Republican Hindu Coalition)

Bansal said the position of the RHC is to have compassion for the young illegal aliens covered by President Barack Obama’s DACA program.

“We want the threat of deportation, a sword hanging on their necks, removed,” he said.

“Hindus have deep connections in the Hispanic community–many Hindus are
mistaken for Hispanics and vice versa–the ‘DAICA’ would gladly pay have participants paying $2,500 per year for 10 years in exchange for the removal of the sword, which would be set aside to pay for the Wall,” he said.

Bansal said the RHC is also focused on the plight of the 200,000 children, who are in the United States legally with their parents, who are also in the country legally–but, both parents and children are on the waiting list for green cards.

Sadly, for these families, if the children do not receive their permanent resident “Green Card” before their 21st birthday, they have to leave the country.

The backlog is aggravated by the practice of chain migration, which gives legal immigration status to the extended families of immigrants, he said.

These children should be part of a Deferred Action for Legal Childhood Arrivals program, he said.

“Give the DALCA kids Green Cards and create a Purple Card for the DAICA kids,” he said. “We have no problem paying the fee as DAICA kids would, but DAICA broke the law, DALCA did not.”

At Saturday’s rally, many of the marchers carried sides supporting the president and the four pillars of his immigration policy:

  1. A path of citizenship for 1.8 million young illegal aliens under the DACA guidelines, including the more than one million aliens eligible for President Barack Obama’s amnesty program, but did not formally register;
  2. Border security, including a wall along the country’s southern border;
  3. End the visa lottery, so that legal immigration is based on merit and
  4. End the practice of “chain migration,” which allows a single legal immigrant to expand their status to members of their extended families. Trump wants to limit the practice to one’s nuclear family.

On the DALCA children at the rally, Akshita, told Big League Politics a daughter of legal residents in United States.

Her parents brought her here with she was less than two-years-old, when her father Ramesh Ranathan, came to America to work as an IT professional, she said.

“I am a legal Dreamer,” she said.

Based on the current system, the average wait for a Green Card for Indians is more than 70 years, which means her parents will most likely die before the government gives them permanent residency.

Speaking to the other marchers, Akshita said her situation was unfair.

“I will be getting pretty much ‘kicked out’ of the US, the only home I have ever known, the land that I felt all the happiness of achievement, and the burning anger of disappointment,”  Akstita said.

“It sounds scary when I think the day I would turn 21, I will be stamped as an alien, a foreigner when you turn 21, even though you have lived in the country legally your whole life?”

Congress must make a fix for Legal Dreamers part of any immigration reform legislation, she said.

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