Usha Vance’s RNC speech against the backdrop of “mass deportation” posters is a source of accusations of hypocrisy
Experts agree that Usha Vance’s remarks reinforce the Republican’s “good immigrant, bad immigrant” storyline.
Making her debut Wednesday at the Republican National Convention, Usha Chilukuri Vance spoke with pride about her Indian immigrant parents. But viewers on social media are criticizing her for what they see as a stark contradiction: the heavily anti-immigrant sentiment that pervaded the audience she was speaking to.
“Usha Vance talking about being a daughter of immigrants as the mostly white people at the RNC hold ‘Mass Deportations Now’ signs is quite the scene,” one Twitter user wrote.
In the evening as the night progressed, red and blue banners dotted the convention floor, with messages such as “Mass Deportations Now” Audible calls that read “Send them back” also repeated when politicians such as Usha Vance’s husband the former vice president of President Donald Trump, choice JD Vance, addressed “illegal aliens” entering the country.
Experts have said that this dichotomy confirms the long-standing strategy of the right.
“There are good immigrants and there are bad immigrants,” said Pawan Dhingra, who is a Professor of American studies at Amherst College. “And the Republican Party is just trying to embrace, quote unquote, ‘good immigrants.'”
In her speech, Usha Vance spoke about her family background and how it was against her husband’s.
“My background is quite unlike JD’s. I was born living in San Diego, in a middle-class family with loving parents and both of them immigrants from India and a beautiful sibling,” she said. “That JD and I could meet at all, let alone fall in love and marry, is a testament to this great country.”
She claimed that JD was able to adapt to her vegetarian diet and she even learned prepare Indian dishes for her family. “It’s hard to imagine a more powerful example of the American Dream,” she declared.
During his talk on Wednesday night Businessman and ex- GOP Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy referred to his family’s immigration story and paired it with a clearer message for those not legally enrolled.
“Our message to every legal immigrant in this country is this: You’re like my parents,” he declared. “You deserve to create a better future to your kids in America. However, the message we send to immigrants who are not legal is this: We’ll return you to the home country.”
Dhingra stated that this kind of rhetoric is particularly damaging when propagated by immigrants’ children such as Ramaswamy as well as Usha Vance, since it creates a divide between the communities of color with similar stories.
“Immigrants generally speaking come to the United States to find work and/or safety, as well as to reunite with family,” the official stated. “The government sets restrictions on the number of people who can legally enter the country. These limits are not arbitrary. If the demands of employers to hire workers from abroad exceeds these limits, then in certain ways, it’s the government who is responsible for creating undocumented immigrants. Therefore, this dichotomy of good and bad immigrants isn’t logical.”
In response to being requested to comment on the criticisms The Vance team responded via Jai Chabria, a JD Vance advisor and a friend to the Vance family.
“White liberals attacking a successful brown woman with such vitriol is exactly why the Democrats are bleeding so many minority voters right now,” the politician said.
Trump Communications director for the campaign Steven Cheung also said the criticism was not justified.
“It is disgusting that out-of-touch liberals and far-left media lose their minds and self-implode when faced with a wildly successful diverse figure who they think should be blindly aligned with them,” He stated.
In the Senate Banking Committee hearing last week, JD Vance cited immigration as one of the primary factors behind financial difficulty across the U.S., including immigrants in general who are taking jobs away from American citizens.
These positions and the overall changes in the vice president’s pick put his views in opposition to the story of his family’s immigrant origins told by his wife, according to experts.
“‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ was trying to speak to the decline or concerns of white, rural Americans, who have felt left behind,” Dhingra stated. “The issue is the fact that Trump has taken these concerns and transformed them into a position that is highly anti-immigrant. … JD Vance] has tapped into the right-wing wing of his base and that’s what gained his Trump’s approval.”
However, despite his speeches railing against immigrants who are not legally documented, Trump’s term as president saw the reduction of legal immigration routes in addition. Work visas for high-skilled workers like green cards and H1Bs caused difficulties for foreign-born workers to be able to work and remain in the U.S. This led to U.S. businesses lost employees Some experts are concerned that Trump will not be able to double down during his second term.
Indian citizens who comprise more than 75 percent of petitioners for H1B, will be stung hard.
In her role as one of fresh face within the MAGA movement, Usha Vance could have an unique role to play in the future when it comes to addressing these risks, Dhingra said.
“I think that having an Indian American Hindu wife will support the Republican Party’s rhetoric that they are not anti-immigrant,” he added. “They just want to make sure that immigrants come and ‘adapt’ to the country properly, and that they don’t threaten certain ways of life.”
Sakshi Venkatraman is an editor at NBC Asian America.