During her Republican National Convention debut on Wednesday, Usha Chirukuri Vance spoke proudly of her Indian immigrant parents, but viewers on social media criticized her for what they saw as an apparent contradiction in the strong anti-immigrant sentiment that permeated the audience where she addressed them.
“It was quite a sight to see Senator Usha Vance talk about being the daughter of immigrants at the Republican National Convention while mostly white attendees held up signs reading ‘Mass Deportations Now’,” one person tweeted.
That night, blue and red signs reading “Mass Deportations Now” were plastered all over the convention, and chants of “send them back” rang out repeatedly as politicians like Usha Vance’s husband, J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, spoke about “illegal immigrants” entering the country.
Experts said the dichotomy confirmed a strategy the right has been considering for years.
“There are good immigrants and there are bad immigrants,” said Pawan Dhingra, a professor of American studies at Amherst College. “The Republican Party is just trying to embrace the so-called ‘good immigrants.'”
In her speech, Usha Vance spoke about her own upbringing and how it differed from her husband’s.
“My background is very different from JD’s. I grew up in a middle-class community in San Diego with loving parents and an amazing older sister who were immigrants from India,” she says. “That JD and I were able to meet, much less fall in love and get married, is a testament to this great country.”
JD adapted to a vegetarian diet and even learned how to cook Indian food for her parents. “It’s hard to imagine a better example of the American dream,” she said.
Vivek Ramaswami, a businessman and former Republican presidential candidate, also spoke about his own family’s immigration experience in a speech Wednesday night, delivering a clearer message about undocumented immigrants.
“Our message to all legal immigrants in this country is that you are just like my parents,” he said. “You deserve the opportunity to secure a better life for your children in America. But our message to illegal immigrants is that we will send you back to your countries of origin.”
Dhingra said this rhetoric is especially harmful when it is chanted by children of immigrants like Ramaswamy and Usha Vance, because it creates rifts between communities of color who come from less disparate backgrounds.
“Immigrants generally come to the United States in search of work, safety and to reunite with family,” he says. “The government places limits on the number of people who can enter legally, and those limits are arbitrary. If employers’ needs for immigrant workers exceed those limits, then in a sense it is the government that has created illegal immigration. So the dichotomy between good and bad immigrants doesn’t make sense.”
When asked for their opinion on the criticism, the Vance team sent a response from Jay Chhabria, an adviser to J.D. Vance and a family friend.
“Such vitriolic attacks by white liberals against successful brown women is exactly why Democrats are losing so many minority voters right now,” he said.
Trump campaign communications director Steven Chang also said the criticism was unfair.
“I’m tired of seeing out-of-touch liberals and far-left media lose their minds and self-destruct in the face of highly successful and diverse people who they believe should blindly align themselves with,” he said.
At a Senate Banking Committee hearing last week, J.D. Vance said immigration, including immigration in general, is one of the biggest causes of America’s economic woes because it takes jobs away from Americans.
Experts say that stance, and the vice presidential nominee’s larger political transformation, are at odds with his wife’s immigrant family narrative.
“‘Hillbilly Elegy’ was trying to speak to the decadence and insecurity of white rural Americans who felt left behind,” Dhingra said. “The problem is that Trump has translated that insecurity into a very anti-immigrant approach…[JD Vance] He appealed to a very right-wing base that won him Trump’s support.”
But despite his fierce anti-illegal immigration speeches, Trump’s presidency also saw legal immigration pathways curtailed. Restrictions on high-skilled work visas such as H1B visas and green cards made it more difficult for foreign-born workers to enter and stay in the United States. As a result, U.S. companies have lost employees, and some experts worry that Trump may intensify that trend in a second term.
Indian nationals, who account for around 75% of H1B visa applicants, will be hit hard.
Dhingra said that as one of the newer faces of the MAGA movement, Usha Vance could play a unique role in addressing these issues in the coming months.
“I think having an Indian-American Hindu wife supports the argument that Republicans are not anti-immigrant,” he said. “They just want to make sure that immigrants come and ‘fit’ into the country properly and don’t threaten a particular way of life.”
