It's coming. It's happening. United States will be a majority minority country by 2045². Let's embrace and prepare for it. By openly acknowledging this historic population shift, we can effectively recognize and counter "the elephant in the room" that has and continues to drive xenophobic policies. We must not be afraid to call it what it is.

Restricting immigration from countries of color under the Trump Administration is a prime example, most notably, the series of Muslim bans, the halting of the visa lottery program, and the ending of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for select countries.

While campaigning in 2016 to enforce a "total and complete ban on Muslims entering the United States",³ President Trump, once in office, under the guise of national security, implemented a series of Muslim bans through Executive Orders. Those impacted under these bans ranged from permanent residents to grandparents of U.S. citizens to all immigrants from primarily Muslim Middle Eastern and African countries.⁴ Currently, these bans are no longer in effect because they either expired, were modified by the Trump Administration itself after realizing they would not meet constitutional muster, successfully challenged in Court, or rescinded by President Biden on his first day in office.⁵

TPS protects immigrants from returning to their home country because their return would be unsafe due to natural disaster, war, or other dangerous conditions. The selective termination of TPS for certain countries impacted immigrants of color from Caribbean, African, and Asian countries like Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Sudan, and Nepal.⁶ These countries have been devastated by natural disaster (hurricanes, earthquakes), civil war, or gang violence. All these terminations have been challenged in the courts and the cases are still pending.⁷

The diversity visa lottery program was also terminated under Trump's Administration and resurrected by President Biden.⁸ This program allots up to 50,000 visas to immigrants randomly selected from countries traditionally underrepresented in the U.S. The majority of the diversity lottery recipients are immigrants from Africa.⁹ Africans, brought over as slaves who they and their offspring were ineligible to become citizens, then excluded by decades of discriminatory immigration laws, lack the familial ties of U.S. citizens who could apply for them under normal and larger family visa categories.¹⁰

In addition to preventing certain immigrants from immigrating to the U.S., government policies under Trump's Administration also tried to make it more difficult for immigrants in the U.S. to become citizens. Immigrant advocates claimed the unprecedented spike in the citizenship application fee by over 80% from $640 to $1,160 was motivated by "racial animus" toward people from non-white majority nations.¹¹ This attempted fee hike has been blocked by the courts because the Administration "failed to consider the negative impact the rule will have on low-income immigrant populations."¹² The majority of low-income immigrant populations come from non-white majority countries.¹³

Crackdown on immigration from non-white countries and policies to make citizenship more difficult are efforts to delay the inevitable. Acutely aware of this, the status quo is simultaneously curtailing the power of growing minority populations. The underlying motive and deceit behind laser focused efforts to undermine democracy have been exposed, often through litigation and the revelation of documents concealed from the public. The aborted efforts by the Trump Administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census is a case in point. Data from the decennial census is used for redistricting. Redistricting determines power in the country-how political lines are drawn impacts who runs for office and who is able to elect them. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross claimed the citizenship question was needed to implement remedies for discrimination allowed under the Voting Rights Act, i.e. if proven that racial gerrymandering occurred, the state legislature must redraw lines using citizenship data of the voting age population of the aggrieved minority community.¹⁴ However, discovery revealed that the real reason for its addition was partisan gain - to chill Latino participation in the Census so political lines could be drawn that favored Republicans.¹⁵ In delivering the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts saw through the Administration's deceit:

Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the Secretary's explanation for his decision. Unlike a typical case in which an agency may have both stated and unstated reasons for a decision, here the VRA enforcement rationale -the sole stated reason-seems to have been contrived."¹⁶

More recent examples of the "elephant in the room" are efforts by Republican dominated state legislatures to pass restrictive voting policies under the pretext of protecting against voter fraud. In the 2020 Presidential election, approximately 60 lawsuits challenging the election results in various states were dismissed by Republican and Democratic appointed judges alike.¹⁷ No substantial credible evidence has surfaced to evidence voter fraud that would justify the election results being overturned.

Yet, after voters turned Georgia blue in the 2020 presidential election and special election runoffs for Senate seats, Georgia's Republican controlled state legislatur, under the guise of protecting against voter fraud, passed a draconian voting rights bill to suppress African American and other minority votes. Some of the controversial provisions contained in this 95-page law, SB202 a/k/a "Election Integrity Act of 2021" include:

• making early in-person voting, voting by absentee ballot, and using ballot drop boxes more difficult by shortening the time for early in-person voting, requiring identification for absentee ballots and banning local governments from mailing unsolicited absentee ballots. These voting methods were used much more
  extensively by voters of color than voting in-person on election day.¹⁸
• removing the voting power of the Secretary of State on the State Elections Board, and allowing the State Election Board to temporarily suspend county election boards. This would give the State Elections Board unprecedented authority to target jurisdictions with a large population of Black voters and other voters of color and raises concerns of tampering with the vote count.¹⁹
• prohibiting handing out food or water to voters within 150 feet of a polling place or 25 feet of voters in line. Long lines for voting particularly impact black voters because there are few voting places in overcrowded metro areas.²⁰

Florida and Iowa with Republican controlled state legislatures followed enacting copycat restrictive voting laws.²¹ Texas was next, but efforts to pass its voter suppression law under the guise of restoring confidence in voting was stalled by a last minute walkout by Democrats.²² This wave of discriminatory voting laws are currently being challenged by multiple lawsuits.²³

Preparing for 2045

We must not only be vigilant in fighting discriminatory voting policies in court, but proactive in advancing policies that promote democracy, integration and coalition building across the races. With the national and international cries for police reform in the wake of George Floyd's death and the naked exposure of our broken health care system spurred by Covid 19, there is an opportunity to rebuild voting, social service, and economic structures with a new vision.

An example is the emergence of rank choice voting (RCV) in more cities for municipal elections. RCV reflects better the choices of diverse voters than restricting voters to one vote for a candidate that may win with a plurality rather than a majority of the votes. RCV allows voters to rank their choices for a position. For example in a mayoral election, if no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the last place candidate is eliminated and those that marked that candidate as No. 1 get their second choice counted instead. The process repeats until a candidate obtains a majority of the votes.

Since RCV is still not widely used, it remains to be seen if this system categorically helps to elect minority candidates. However, there have been positive outcomes. In 1975, RCV led to the election of an African American mayor in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But one year later, voters voted to repeal RCV.²⁴ A 2018 study of California's four cities - San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Leandro- adopting RCV found that RCV increased the number of women candidates and minority women candidates being elected.²⁵ Following the lead of Maine and cities like San Francisco, Cambridge, MA, St Paul, MI, and Santa Fe, NM ²⁶, New York City voters amended its charter last year to implement RCV for municipal elections. On June 22, 2021, RCV will be used to determine the primary election for mayor and city council races in New York City. Stay tuned.

Across the country, various localities are now reimaging policing to include prioritizing community based mental health support, civilian-based oversight initiatives, and better ways of tracking police misconduct.²⁷ Policing reforms include more transparency like making police disciplinary records public.²⁸

Food banks, like UA3's community first food bank in New York City that have emerged to foster cross cultural support in marginalized communities hit hard by COVID-19 are a good beginning²⁹ to build needed trust between communities impacted by decades of defacto housing segregation. Charity though needs to evolve into "solidarity" to address the root causes of inadequate food supplies in inner cities and empower local residents to obtain other basic needs like affordable housing, jobs, and affordable health care.

To address the lack of affordable housing, Investing in infrastructure that creates more affordable housing needs to be a top priority by national and state legislators. This means preventing high rise luxury developments and increasing federal subsidies to sustain community based housing projects.³⁰ Increased funding of the National Housing Trust Fund to help extremely low income households obtain affordable housing is key.³¹

And education, based on facts and informed knowledge, not lies or cult like propaganda, must be inclusive of all cultures and accessible. With the spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans as a result of misplaced blame for COVID-19 and the deliberate perpetuation of the harmful stereotype of Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners, emphasis has been on introducing K-12 curriculum on Asian Pacific Islanders.³² And following the examples of 25 states, national focus on tuition-free community colleges makes access to education more equitable.³³ A well rounded education dispels fears and stereotypes and leads to effective policy making.

To ensure an effective transition to a majority minority country in 2045, xenophobic policies must be aggressively challenged. At the same time, proactive strategies geared toward full participation, integration and equitable results in voting and the provision of basic human services must be aggressively pursued, tested, and improved upon.

¹Since 2001, OuYang has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. She is a civil rights attorney, advocate, and educator.

²Frey, William H. "US will become minority white in 2045, Census Projects", Brookings Institution (March 14, 2018); https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2018/03/14/the-us-will-become-minority-white-in-2045- census-projects/.

³Trump, Donald J. "Donald J.Trump Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration", Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (December 7, 2015).

⁴The original ban applied to seven Muslim countries: Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan. Subsequent Muslim ban expanded the ban of permanent immigrant visas to immigrants from Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania. See "Timeline of the Muslim Ban", ACLU, https://www.aclu wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban.

⁵Id. "Proclamation on Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States", White House (January 20,2021).

⁶"Fact Sheet-Temporary Protected Status (TPS), National Immigration Forum (March 12, 2021), https://immigrationforum.org/article/fact-sheet-temporary-protected-status/.

⁷Lovino, Nicholas. "Lawsuit Seeks to Undo Fee Hikes for Citizenship and Asylum Applications", Courthouse New Service (August 21, 2020), https://www.courthousenews.com/lawsuit-seeks-to-undo-fee-hikes-for-citizenship-and asylum-applications/.

⁸"Trump's April 2020 Restrictions on Immigration", ILRC (September 14, 2020), https://www.ilrc.org/summary trumps-april-2020-restrictions-immigration. Mauer, Roy. " Biden Restarts Green Card Processing From Abroad", SHRM (March 1, 2021), https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/president biden-restarts-green-card-processing-aspx.

⁹ Merelli, Annalisa. "How a unique visa lottery promotes the dream of American diversity-50,000 green cards at a time", Quartz (October 28,2016); https://qz.com/803831/how-a-unique-lottery-is-keeping-the-dream-of american-diversity-alive-50000-green-cards-at-a-time/.

¹⁰ Id. Immigration Act of 1924 barred immigrants from Africa who were not eligible for U.S. citizenship.

¹¹ Lovino, Nicholas. supra.

¹² Chung. Christine. "Aspiring Citizens Get Court's Reprieve on Scheduled Naturalization Fee Increase", The City (September 30, 2020), https://www.thecity.nyc/immigration/2020/9/30/21496337/citizenship-fee-increase struck-down.

¹³ Budiman, Abby, et al. "Facts on U.S. immigrants, 2018", Pew Research Center (August 20, 2020), https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s-immigrants-current-data/.

¹⁴ See Memorandum from Secretary Wilbur Ross to Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Karen Dunn Kelley (Mar.26, 2018), https://www,dicynebtckiyd,irg.dicynebts.442678-commerce2018-03-26-2.html [https://perma.cc/59M6-3Y7E].

¹⁵ Secretary Ross and Stephen Bannon, the former advisor to President Trump and outspoken critic against immigration, exchanged emails that led to Secretary Ross contacting Kris Kobach. Kris Kobach is one of the architects behind the controversial S.B. 1070 in Arizona, which would allow local police to stop people they believed to be undocumented and a proponent of resurrecting the failed special registration of Arabs, Muslims,
and South Asians. In an email to Secretary Ross, Kris Kobach opined that not asking people whether they are citizens during the census "leads to the problem that aliens who do not actually 'reside' in the United States are still counted for congressional apportionment purposes." These emails make no mention of the need to have citizenship data to enforce the Voting Rights Act. During the New York trial, the court shockingly found that then Attorney General Jeff Sessions blocked a meeting between the Census Bureau's team and the Justice Department's legal team to discuss alternative ways to obtain citizenship data besides putting the question on the survey. See "Two Recent Supreme Court Decisions and Changing Demographics Underscore the Importance of US Citizenship." Asian American Law Journal, University of California, Berkeley School of Law, Vol. 27, No. 1, page 10 citing New York vs. U.S. Dep't of Commerce, ECF No. 623, at 64, 68, 77-78.

¹⁶ New York vs. U.S. Dep't of Commerce, ECF No. 623, at 64, 68, 77-78; 139 S. Ct. 2551, 2575 (2019).

¹⁷ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/08/joe-biden/joe-biden-right-more-60-trumps-election lawsuits-l/.

¹⁸ Weiner. Ian. "Georgia's SB202 is a Culmination of Concerted Efforts to Suppress the Participation of Black Voters and Other Voters of Color", Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights (March 29, 2021),
https://lawyerscommittee.org/georgias-sb202-is-a-culmination-of-concerted-efforts-to-suppress-the-participation of-black-voters-and-other-voters-of color/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw2NyFBhDoARIsAMtHtZ70ufBc2SwlmbzxcbFaQ6O6PDl_oVoJFSBOZsDlxV7Q_a_wKfQaGJQaA m09EALw_wcB

¹⁹ Id.

²⁰ Fowler. Stephen. Here Are All the lawsuits Challenging Georgia's New Voting Law",
gpb.org/news/2021/o5/19/here-are-all-the-lawsuits-challenging-Georgia-new-voting-law.

²¹ Corasaniti, Nick and Epstein, Reid J. "With Florida bill, Republicans Continue Unrelenting Push to Restrict Voting", The New York Times (April 30, 2021, updated May 7, 2021).

²² Weber, Paul J. and Coronado, Acadia. "Dems Walk, Stop Texas GOP's Sweeping Voting Restrictions", AP, June 1, 2021.

²³ Seven lawsuits have been filed challenging Georgia's voting rights law as discriminatory and unconstitutional. See Fowler supra.

²⁴ Ratner, Ben. "The Moment for Rank Choice Voting in Ann Arbor", Fair Vote (September 10, 2018); https://www.fairvote.org/the_moment_for_ranked_choice_voting_in_ann_arbor.

²⁵ John. Sarah. "The alternative vote can increase the representation of women and people of color in U.S. elections", LSC US Centre (July 24, 2018); https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2018/07/24/the-alternative-vote-can increase-representation-of-women-and-people-of-color-in-us-elections/.

²⁶ Fortin, Jacey. "Why Ranked Choice Voting is Having a Moment", The New York Times (April 23,2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/us/politics/ranked-choice-voting.html.

²⁷ Collins, Sean. "These 3 Cities began boldly reimaging policing after George Floyd's murder", Vox (May 25,2021); https://www.vox.com/22446715/george-floyd-one-year-anniversary-police-reform-austin-portland-minneapolis.

²⁸ "NY Police Disciplinary Records Made Public Cuomo Orders, Local Government's Reinvent Police Strategies", NBC, June 12, 2020, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/cuomo-expected-to-sign-50-a-repeal-to-make police-disciplinary-records-public/2458910/.

²⁹ UA3's Community First Food Bank packages and delivers foods from Trader Joe's donations and the federal Coronavirus Food Assistance Program to NYCHA residences, senior citizen homes and tenement buildings throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and South Bronx. See www.ua3now.org.

³⁰ Sheftell, Jason. "Inside the Best of NYC's Affordable Housing", NY Daily News (Sept 21, 2012); https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/best-new-york-city-affordable-housing-article-1.1163995.

³¹ https://nlihc.org/explore-issues/projects-campaigns/national-housing-trust-fund.

³² Bagcal, Jenna. "Queens senator introduces legislation requiring state public schools to teach Asian American history", QNS (April 28, 2021); https://qns.com/2021/04/queens-senator-introduces-legislation-requiring-state public-schools-to-teach-asian-american-history/.

³³ "Biden's American Families Plan Could Make Free College a Reality, CNBC (April 28, 2021); https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/28/biden-american-families-plan-could-make-free-college-a-reality.html.