The South Asian Bar Association of Northern California is deeply dismayed by President Trump’s latest attempt to scapegoat the immigrant community for federal failures to properly contain, manage and treat the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic fallout by threatening to institute a total ban on immigration to the United States. The President’s latest initiative clearly is not rooted in health concerns, as no mention is made of halting tourism. The United States has the highest number of reported cases of COVID-19 and nearly double the death toll of any country in the world. Any economic justification for such a ban is just as weak.
Many of us in SABA are immigrants or the children of immigrants who sought to come to the United States for the numerous educational and work opportunities America provided. South Asian immigrants and their children, like immigrants from around the world, contribute in all sectors of the community and economy, most visibly on the front lines of the health response to the current crisis as treating physicians and medical staff, developers of vaccines and test kits, and as manufacturers of medical equipment. A 2019 Harvard study noted that 1 in 4 health care workers in America—the very people we are now relying on to get our nation through the pandemic—are immigrants. But South Asian Americans are also among the lawyers who maintain the critical functions of our justice system, delivery drivers, cooks and grocers who keep America fed, cleaners who make our common spaces safe from infection, and a variety of other workers deemed “essential” in the current crisis. The idea that all of the immigrants in these roles should suddenly be replaced by “American Citizens” who did not do those jobs before is both antithetical to the American ideal and counterproductive to jump-starting our economy and healing our sense of community.
We urge the federal government to reject President Trump’s proposed ban on immigration and all other efforts to blame immigrants for this global pandemic. America only becomes stronger when it attracts the best that other countries have to offer and it can only remain great if it lives up to the ideal of welcoming those seeking opportunity and refuge.
