I want to tell you something that’s not easy to talk about…
A sitting Republican elected official recently tagged the Department of Homeland Security on social media and wrote: "I would like to report a foreign occupier. Name: Unpronounceable. Country of origin: Tatooine." He was talking about me. The same official called for the mass deportation of Indian Americans.
I was born in New Delhi. I came to this country as a baby. I grew up in Peoria, Illinois. I went to public schools, got on food stamps for a time with my family, worked my way to Princeton and Harvard Law. I served in government. I got elected to Congress four times.
And someone still looked at all of that and saw a foreign occupier.
I'm telling you this not for sympathy. I'm telling you this because what happened to me is happening to communities all across this country right now, at a scale we have never seen before.
Trump and his MAGA allies have made it clear: if you weren't born here, if your name is hard to pronounce, if you look different or pray differently, you are not fully American in their eyes. They are using the machinery of the federal government to make that point, loudly and cruelly, every single day.
My father came here with nothing. He believed this country would be there for families like ours. It was. Barely. Because people fought for it.
That is exactly why I started Equal Opportunity Now.
We need leaders in office who will stand up for immigrant families and for every community that Trump has decided to make an enemy.
Those leaders exist. They are running for office right now. They need our support.
Will you chip in $25 or $50 today to help Equal Opportunity Now back the leaders who won't back down?
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