See an article of a Donald Trump supporter

WASHINGTON I was out of the country when
I learned that he didn’t want me to come back.
At 4:35 p.m. on Monday, as I worked out of my
aunt's home in the suburbs of Ottawa, Canada,
I got an email: My just-issued U.S. visa was in
my Pakistani passport and ready to be picked
up. I began planning when I could go to the
post office the next day. I wanted to see that
literal stamp of approval in person -- to touch
it, to know I could return to the people I love,
the work I love. To actually hold the document
would be a moment of triumph, a brief respite
from the knowledge that my life in the U.S.
exists solely at the pleasure of bureaucrats. I
had a flight booked for Tuesday night. My
suitcase -- which I'd crammed full before
leaving D.C., since it wasn't clear how long the
visa process might take -- was ready to go.
Minutes later, The Huffington Post and scores
of other outlets began reporting that Donald
Trump, who's leading the race to be the
Republican nominee for president in 2016,
wanted to stop all Muslims from entering the
U.S. I started getting little news alerts on my
phone, explaining that Trump
was characterizing all Muslims (more than 1.5
billion of us ) as "people that believe only in
Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect
for human life." Each ping was a reminder that
someone with a lot of money and a lot of
popular support would like to keep me from
returning to my friends and my life. I wondered
whether I would trigger Trump's "Muslim" alert.
Would my name do me in? The country I was
born in? My aversion to bacon? Perhaps we
could negotiate if I mentioned that I quite like
chorizo?
With my flight a day away, I hadn't yet begun
the routine I use to prepare for trips to the U.S.
Government and airline guidelines explain some
of what you need to collect. They don't explain
the code-switching bit: being conscious of
what you wear, how you look, how you answer
questions. A Pakistani friend once told me she
always travels to the States in gear from her
American university. It's a way of signaling: I'm
normal! I promise! I once told my brother that
I'd mentioned to an immigration officer I might
travel to Pakistan soon to visit my parents.
Shocked, he texted back, "Oh, um." It's best,
Muslims tell each other, to be a bit vague to
avoid setting off alarms. So we become a little
more restrained, push ourselves a little further
into the shadows -- so far, in fact, that we're
almost choking on all the words we ought to be
able to casually share.
I didn't have any clothing that yelled "Yale," but
I did hack away at the scruff I'd let grow during
my time away from the office. Cardinal rule:
don't allow yourself to look in any way like the
archetype of the Muslim extremist. (Even if you
report on that variant of extremism -- one of
many, religious and otherwise, that regularly
claim innocent lives -- and know it's not always
lurking behind a beard.)
I collected the passport Tuesday morning. The
stamp of approval awaited. After more than a
year of worrying that it might elude me and
shatter my vision of post-college life, there it
was -- the magical H-1B visa, distributed by
randomized lottery to about 30 percent of
foreigners hired by American firms each year.
I got to the Ottawa airport three hours early. I
knew what I'd find there, and I knew it wouldn't
be as fun as a sparkling new acknowledgment
of my right to be in the U.S. It was instead a
reminder that I'd be silly to think I had such a
right. What I and many others really have is a
tenuous kind of privilege.
Muslims soon become accustomed to the back
rooms behind U.S. immigration desks. I walked
into a familiar too-bright space with signs
explaining that electronic items were forbidden
(no sobbing along to Adele here) and that I
could be fined or jailed for interfering with
border security officials.
A young Barack Obama, not a gray hair in
sight, watched me from the opposite wall.
Hanging slightly below his portrait was one of
Department of Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson. One of the legal minds behind
Obama's drone campaign , Johnson is also, I
recalled, a top Washington socialite . There's a
painful irony in knowing that kind of detail,
learning it as part of your job reporting on U.S.
foreign policy, and still knowing you're
officially, legally, an outsider. At this time a
year ago, I remembered, I'd been at a Christmas
party hosted by a top U.S. intelligence agency.
I lucked out, I told myself: I had the nicest
immigration officer in the world. Or at least one
who was a very good actor. The kind, chatty
man going through my suitcase asked me
questions about my time in Canada, my work in
the U.S. and my ties to Pakistan that seemed
more thoughtful than intrusive. He stamped my
passport, approving my entry to the U.S., and
we wished each other a wonderful night.
Trump or no, I'd made it. It'd just be a matter
of hours before I could step off the plane at
Dulles International, collect my bag and head
home. Take that, ya fascist!
It didn't feel like a triumph, though. Instead, it
felt like some insidious degree of Trump-ness
had already instilled itself in me. That sense of
"luck," that craving for a sign that it's all OK
between me and the U.S.G. -- that's what I
mean.
A masochist of the highest order, I spent the
hours before my flight catching up on some
national security reading. That's how I spent
30 minutes on The New Yorker's 2005 account
of the Bush administration's extraordinary
rendition program, which snatched up terrorist
suspects from airports -- most of them males
from the Muslim world -- and shipped them to
jails around the globe, where they were tortured
into forced, often false confessions. I read
about a well-educated Canadian engineer who
was sent to his parents' homeland, Syria, in
late 2002. There, officials holding him on
behalf of the U.S. "whipped his hands
repeatedly with two-inch-thick electrical cables,
and kept him in a windowless underground cell
that he likened to a grave."
That is not a fantasyland in which Trump is
president. That is a past I can remember. That
could have been me. The proponents of those
U.S.-facilitated cable-whippings are still vocal,
prominent and undeterred . I thought about my
"luck" again, the luck that kept me safe during
those years. The thing about being lucky is how
many around you, how many who look like you,
are left unlucky. This kind of luck leaves you
cheering one moment and breathless the next,
your chest taut as you begin to feel like
everything inside you could snap at any
moment.
I'm lucky to have wonderful friends, mentors
and co-workers, folks who sent me messages
of support after Trump made his remarks.
I'm lucky to be represented by groups that fight
for Muslims in America, and to know that
everyone from the White House on down was
willing to combat Trump's rhetoric.
I'm lucky to have Obama in my corner -- to an
extent.
The president's speech on Sunday was
powerful. But I know it won't take back the
assaults he's approved on Muslim civilians.
And I doubt it will mean much to the throngs of
Trump supporters, the radicalized former
detainees who continue to threaten all of us, or
the millions upon millions of people who have
suffered under horrifying regimes in the Muslim
world that the U.S. has backed.
Muslims deserve more. We deserve to have our
humanity acknowledged not only when an
easy, laughable target like Trump challenges it,
itself. We deserve a conversation that features
our voices and arguments from people other
than conservatives competing to be the most
hateful, or liberals sparring for the shiniest
pluralistic credentials. I feel ill when I hear
Republican presidential candidates talk about
barring Muslim refugees from the country. But I
don't feel much better when I see liberals eager
to bash American imperialism stay oddly silent
about human rights violations by non-U.S.
actors, and suggest that bloodthirsty dictators
like Saddam Hussein are " better " for the world.
Whose world is that? What kind of "better" is
this?
Muslims shouldn't have to rely on luck, on
chance, to make it in. That's not enough.
NOTE: Powers-that-be, please don't read this
as an invitation to cancel my visa. I just don't
know if I'll get another one post-2016.