Campaign Corner: Doug Chin Fights For Immigrants
The congressional candidate is outspoken about the dangers posed by the Trump administration.
Of the six candidates for Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District, there is only one choice: Doug Chin.
As an immigrant to the United States — and a scholar of international migration — I understand how crucial anti-immigrant politics is to far-right organizing.
Blaming immigrants has long been a standard ploy for those trying to undermine the rights of working people to the benefit of the power-hungry and the rich.Â
Doug Chin, having never run for political office before, is like so many others in the U.S. who have become vocal against the dangers posed by the Trump administration. While he stood up against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for reneging on student loan forgiveness and abandoning campus sex assault survivors, and while he led attorneys general across the U.S. to support a gay couple discriminated against by a wedding cake baker, it is Doug Chin’s principled and hard-fought case against Trump’s Muslim ban that convinced me that he alone has the know-how and the personal integrity to stand up to bullies.
With Doug Chin we know that we are getting someone who can do more than blow populist bubbles, we know we are getting a true Democratic candidate and not a Republican in sheep’s clothing, and, we know we are getting someone who is willing to put in the hard work it takes to right many wrongs.Â
Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump’s Muslim ban, Doug Chin — and the rest of us fighting for immigrants — know that the real fight for justice will be in Congress. Doug Chin will go to Congress having already earned the respect of many civil rights leaders, of many working people’s organizations, and of the End Citizens United group trying to end corporate attacks against democracy.
Most crucially for me, Doug Chin has earned the respect of long-time progressive activists who see so much of what we fought for end with the stroke of Trump’s pen. We are acutely aware that things can get much worse unless we have a Congress willing to do take their role as a check against presidential powers seriously. I don’t think it is any exaggeration to say that these are dangerous times. I can think of no one else I trust to stand up for us other than Doug Chin.
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