Green card holding parents of citizens of Indian origin working in the US, be they naturalised citizens of the USA or green card holders themselves, often spend six months in India during the salubrious season, i.e., October through March, which also coincides with the great Indian festival season. Unbeknownst to many, their visit to their motherland is also to escape intense winter in large parts of the USA. This time around, when they returned to their home away from home, they were subjected to the kind of humiliation reserved for felons—sign the form volunteering to surrender your green card, or else you cannot enter. Remember, these senior citizens in the autumn of their lives are perfectly harmless, unlike some of the students of Indian origin, who have been deported for sympathising with the Palestine cause. To be sure, they may not be contributing to the US economy as workers or earners, but their presence revitalises and reassures their working children, besides impelling them to expand the family budget. In other words, to the extent the family spends more on such ageing parents, the US economy benefits. Therefore, the Trump administration should take both a humane and pragmatic view of their silent, passive but harmless and comforting presence instead of taking umbrage at it. In any case, their sponsors, i.e., their children, undertake to meet their expenses, including for medical. The shoe does pinch for the family, which has made the US its home and contributes to its growth, done in by such insensitivity and high-handedness.

Instead of bearing down upon them, the Trump administration........

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