Trump’s rhetoric from his first term (“s___hole countries”) is now manifesting in action. Forget non-citizens in the US: it is now American citizens getting killed if they protest. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) claims that it needs no judicial warrant to enter homes. The Vice-President of the United States claimed, then walked back, a statement that ICE has absolute immunity. His boss went one-up and called Somalis “garbage”.
The sporadic but relatively mild protests that have been referenced in the Australian media, including Indian Link, cannot hold a candle to what is going on in the US.
What is going on in the US is beyond the pale – and driven by official policy. In immigrant communities, the ICE crackdown is seen with a mix of fear, scepticism, and pragmatism. People are concerned, even if they are citizens or otherwise legal. Yet several community leaders describe a chilling effect: parents keep children home, workers avoid public spaces, and WhatsApp groups circulate “what to do if ICE comes” scripts – some accurate, some alarmist. The South Asian American Policy & Research Institute has published “Know Your Rights” cards in 10 South Asian languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. The cards are designed for a simple moment: if approached by immigration agents, a person can follow the recommendations and assert the right to remain silent and refuse to consent to a search, without having to improvise under stress. ICE crackdown
But even so, distrust is growing – especially after news of an alarming internal memo which said that warrants are not needed for a search. Believing now that ICE cannot be trusted to follow the law, lawyers recommend that immigrants demand warrants that say “US District Court” at the top. What is palpable right now is the anxiety behind the American Dream.
That stress is amplified by a parallel information war online. Anti-Indian and anti-immigrant posts – often false or wildly inflated – are spreading fast. A recent example involved former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene amplifying a claim that one attorney “brought in” roughly 700,000 H-1B visas in 2025. This was false. US H-1B numbers are capped by statute at 85,000. For many Indian-Americans, the sting is not just the “fact-free” nature of the post but the way it feeds a broader narrative that conflates all skilled migration with fraud. ICE crackdown
Politics inside the community is making the moment even more complex. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott ordered state agencies and public universities to freeze new H-1B petitions (with limited exceptions), framing the move as a response to alleged abuses. The decision immediately put Indians – who comprise a large share of H-1B recipients – at the centre of a national argument about who belongs in taxpayer-funded institutions. Above all, it will hurt Americans, as Indian doctors and other skilled professionals leave. American patients and businesses lose out while the H1Bs make a smooth move to Canada, Europe, and the UAE, which are more than happy to welcome them.
The Texas episode also illustrated an uncomfortable reality: alignment with anti-immigration politics does not immunise anyone from nativism. Abraham George, the Indian-origin chairman of the Texas Republican Party, publicly supported the freeze, and then he himself faced trolling that targeted him for being Indian:
We dont do that in America. pic.twitter.com/UbxARyCm3P
— The Repatriator (@DrRepatriator) January 31, 2026
ICE crackdown
A similar dynamic played out around Dinesh D’Souza, who has been criticised – even by some on the right – for hypocrisy when he decried anti-Indian racism while sharing content that others characterise as racially inflammatory.
Where this is coming from is a familiar pattern: Donald Trump and his allies are seen as politically skilled at identifying real public frustrations – border disorder, some visa misuse, bureaucratic dysfunction, and, above all, a dwindling social welfare net. However, instead of fixing the problem, they fix the blame – and make things worse. In the current cycle, that political posture is colliding with rapidly evolving enforcement practices, contested legal interpretations, and social media accelerants that make entire communities feel targeted, even when the formal policy justification is narrower. ICE crackdown
How can we respond? When there is an evil plot, the good must plan, as Dr Martin Luther King said. Beyond that, however, we may need to fall back on spiritual teaching: one oft-shared Islamic teaching, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, urges people to change wrong with action if they can, speak out if they cannot, and at minimum, reject it in their hearts.
Oh wait! MAGA might hate an Islamic saying, so let’s try the Bible, which exhorts us to correct and teach patiently. Or try Hindu, Buddhist, or other paths. Ultimately, the path to overcome hate must come from a position of love but also with a mentality of determination to overcome the hate around us, all over the world – whether in America, or Ukraine, Gaza, or elsewhere.
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