By T N Ashok
NEW YORK: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first bilateral meeting with the U.S. President Donald Trump in his second term on February 13 at White House has got unusual significance at the present moment when the entire country is worried at the fate of the huge number of undocumented Indians in the U.S. as also the future of the Indian H-1B visa holders. Modi will be the second foreign leader to get the opportunity to have a summit with Trump after the inauguration on January 20. The first was the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’
More than 18,000 illegal Indian migrants are in the process of being identified and verified as Indians and as illegal migrants before they can be deported to India in the coming weeks. The US government needs the assistance of both its Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the department of home and foreign ministry in India to complete this process.
Per the PEW research centre, there are 725,000 undocumented Indians working illegally in the United States without any papers and this is the highest number after illegal migrants from Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico who have snuck in through the Canadian and Southern borders such as Texas and Arizona. Indian economy and social life will be in a flux if all these undocumented Indians are de[ported by the U.S. government. Indian Prime Minister through his persuasion has to prevent the mass scale deportation of such Indians and limit it to the minimum number of possible.
US President Donald Trump made the cross-border migration a big election issue as a fraction of the illegal migrants brought in through Mexico were sent by drug cartels as mules by Coyotes (agents who ferry them across the waters) to establish centres for distribution of cocaine, and Fentanyl drugs. The US reports the death of something like 100,000 youths every year either through drug abuse of the cancer drug mixed with cocaine or overuse by addiction. Fentanyl is a deadly painkiller used in cancer treatment and its 100 times more powerful than morphine or cocaine. One of the most infamous cases was the death of a child in a childcare in the Bronx in New York city in 2022 when a child inhaled the smell of Fentanyl from a sachet kept under a rug by one of the workers in the centre, who happened to be a drug trafficker from Mexico.
Well settled migrants from the Mexican and South American communities are themselves troubled by the presence of these illegal migrants whom the government claims are responsible for drug trafficking, violence on the streets and gang wars. But research institutions say illegal migrants are not the sole cause of crime or violence but many of them are settled migrants from the southern part of America.
Indian migrants brought into America are mainly from Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat through illegal routes by usurious agents who dupe the youths whose parents sell jewellery and agricultural lands to finance the agents to ferry them to the land of dreams. Prices go as high $25,000 to $50,000 translated in rupee terms amount to about at least Rs 500,000 or Rs. five lakhs or even crosses one million rupees in some cases. Youths are little aware of the complications of such illegal entry and hope they can work and earn and cancel out the payments made to the agents. It was possible under the democratic government where homeland security was lax in reporting or cracking down on such migrants especially Indians as their focus was mainly on Mexicans for fear of narco cartels.
But Trump won the November 2024 elections on the promise of cleaning up the streets through mass deportations of what he termed as Aliens (illegal migrants) and is now racing to keep up the pledge to retain his voter base of south Asians, Arabs, Latinos besides ultra right voters, who are whites.
In India there has been a hue and cry over horrendous stories narrated by the first batch of illegal Indian migrants transported from San Antonio in Texas to Amritsar in Punjab in a 40 hour journey that may have required pit stops for refuelling, though the military aircraft, which can carry tanks and soldiers is well equipped to fly long distances. The migrants complained that they were handcuffed and shackled and strapped to seats besides being deprived of proper food on their 40 hours journey, even access to the toilets were blocked. Well one has to pay the price for illegal migration, but unfortunately the youths from Punjab are not that well educated and get easily duped by unscrupulous agents who con them and sit on huge cash piles.
Following the opposition uproar in parliament and outside, the ministry of foreign affairs has appealed to the US government not to shackle or handcuff Indians being deported and accord humane treatment. Deportation of Indian illegal migrants is not something new, its been happening over the years from the time of the UPA government and now it’s getting wider coverage because of the mass deportation of Mexican and South American aliens by the ICE.
Most of the Indian migrations that takes place from southern India is through proper legal channels and therefore they have proper documents and work permits to stay in the US – they are mostly from Andhra Pradesh, the highest number that people call the US the 2nd home of Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, who were mostly going to gulf are now going to the US as there is a shortage of health care workers and nurses from Kerala rank among the best in the world.
Karnataka has a huge pool of tech workers migrating through proper channels. But rumours abound that even H-1B workers would be evicted from the US. But that’s not possible as they have been exchanged by American companies and Indian software companies in a B2B channel. Some 77% of the migrant force working in the US are spread over the West and East coast in the cities of San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles in the west and New York and several towns in New Jersey. 17% of Chinese workers are spread out here.
In just four years, the number of Indian citizens entering the US illegally has surged dramatically — from 8,027 in the 2018-19 fiscal year to 96,917 during 2022-23, government data showed. Young Indians looking for work opportunities have made up a sizable portion of undocumented migrants in the US, some of whom are making the dangerous trek through Latin America to reach the US southern border. Some of them have gone through the jungles of Panama and Brazil to reach the US.
A Hindi film called Dunkey (donkey) starring mega super star Shah Rukh Khan highlighted what is more notoriously known as the Dunkey route for illegal migrants to enter the US and their plight. The film did brisk business particularly in northern India where families could relate to the reel life stories of the migrants with real life stories of the youths’ selling properties in chase of the American Dream. The surge is being attributed to the post pandemic delay in issue of tourist visas and H-1B visas which now averages a 444 delay in interview and delay of interviews by the US embassy and consulates spread across the country. So the Dunkey route to get to the USA in short time through usurious agents transporting them across Europe to Latin America onwards to the USA. While the agents make killing and sit on cash piles, the innocents duped suffer ignominy, lose their monies and eventually now get deported.
There are an estimated half million illegal entries into the United States each year. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated that 6–7 million immigrants came to the United States via illegal entry (the rest entering via legal visas allowing a limited stay, but then not leaving when their visa period ended).
A smaller number of illegal immigrants entered the United States legally using the Border Crossing Card, a card that authorizes border crossings into the US for a set amount of time. Border Crossing Card entry accounts for the vast majority of all registered non-immigrant entry into the United States—148 million out of 179 million total—but there is little hard data as to how much of the illegal immigrant population entered in this way. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates the number at around 250,000–500,000.
Illegal immigrants within the workforce are extremely vulnerable due to their status. Being illegal makes these individuals susceptible to exploitation by employers as they are more willing to work through bad conditions and low-income jobs—consequently making themselves vulnerable to abuse. Most illegal migrants end up being hired by US employers who exploit the low-wage market produced through immigration. Typical jobs include janitorial services, clothing production, and household work. It is estimated that uneducated Mexicans are used by Indian and American grocery stores for loading and unloading operations, Indians are used as clerks in small shops and even PMBs.
Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996. This prevented federal, state, and local public benefits from flowing to illegal immigrants. It also required federal and state agencies to disclose if someone was illegal. Additionally, PRWORA prohibited states from giving professional licenses to those illegal.
Numerous incentives draw foreigners to the US. Most illegal immigrants come to America for better opportunities for employment, a greater degree of freedom, avoidance of political oppression, freedom from violence, famine, and family reunification. Illegal migration went unchecked largely due to Democrats policy of Open Borders as they scrutinised and admitted asylum seekers from oppressive regimes in their countries and human rights violations. The GOP does not believe in Open Borders policy. International polls by Gallup in 2021 found that the US remained the most-desired destination country for potential migrants worldwide, followed by Canada and Germany.
With a population of more than 5.4 million, Indian Americans make up approximately 1.47% of the U.S. population and are the largest group of South Asian Americans, the largest Asian-alone group, and the second-largest group of Asian Americans after Chinese Americans. Indian Americans have the highest median household income and the second highest per capita income (after Taiwanese Americans) among other Asian ethnic groups working in the United States. (IPA Service)
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