U.S. House of RepresentativesCandidate for District 12

Our country’s dilapidated infrastructure is a threat to public safety, an opportunity for potentially transformative economic stimulus, and a vital opportunity to upgrade our 20th century transportation system for the 21st century.

Crumbling roads and collapsing bridges threaten communities across the U.S. and create challenges for economic inclusion, especially for communities that lack accessible transit infrastructure.

Reflecting on early eras in U.S. history, the creation of the Interstate Highway system represented a massive stimulus package that not only increased transportation efficiencies, but also put a generation to work.

A similar scale investment in high-speed rail today could modernize our interstate transportation system, put a generation back to work, and bring the U.S. up to par with other countries from China and Japan to Germany and France, whose rail systems make America’s look archaic.

Investments in urban transit alternatives are also crucial. Finally, I would favor investing in roads and bridges at a rationalized level relative to other infrastructure investment opportunities given emerging transitions in patterns of car ownership and use. The rise of on demand ride-sharing and the emergence of autonomous vehicles, in particular, might suggest the possibility of smart infrastructure better suited for scalable future use.

Medicare for All is an imperative not only for human rights, efficiency in healthcare, and improving the competitiveness of businesses, but also a crucial bulwark against the medical costs that tip many people into homelessness.

The richest nation in the world should not be resigned to anyone dying early because they lack access to quality care. Ultimately, access to doctors and medicine should not be allocated to maximize any corporation’s profit, but rather available as a matter of right.

In addition, our current corporate healthcare system is a yoke around the necks of both small and large businesses whose competitiveness would be enhanced under a single payer system. Companies in other countries need not internalize the costs of employee healthcare. Put simply, for-profit healthcare places American businesses at a competitive disadvantage relative to their competitors in other countries.

My only quibble with this question is that healthcare as a matter of right should extend to all Americans, regardless of citizenship. My vision is predicated on the idea that by enabling access to preventive care, a single-payer system can drive down costs across the health care delivery system, both by addressing individual health problems before they grow acute and also by leveraging economies of scale. These effects only take root when services are available broadly, without being contingent on citizenship or immigration status.

I am running to represent California’s 12th congressional district as a Muslim immigrant, and present myself as an example of how immigrants demonstrate patriotism, often beyond that understood—let alone emulated—by Americans who take their citizenship and freedoms for granted.

My family immigrated twice: first from Pakistan to England to escape religious discrimination, and then from England to the U.S. for opportunity. I understand migration, both as a reflection of international violence supported by our country’s ignorant foreign policy, and as a simple choice among workers pursuing opportunities.

In the summer of 2017, I became the first advocate in the country to identify the use of cell-site simulators—military surveillance tools that allow law enforcement agencies to spy on cell phone networks—not to investigate a legitimate threat to national security, but rather to track down an undocumented American in Detroit. I have also long sounded an alarm about biometric privacy, which the FBI has assaulted using immigrants as political bait.

In Congress, I will fight for the rights of immigrants, including for a pathway to citizenship, and against “enforcement-first” proposals that aim to embed in comprehensive immigration reform proposals for further militarization of our borders.