How Growing Number of Indians are Entering the US Illegally and What is Driving Them | EXPLAINED

In a first, the United States is seeing an influx of illegal migrants from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador, which were considered to be the nations accounting for the maximum number of illegal immigrants.

There has been a record number of asylum seekers from India who are travelling across the world to the US-Mexico, becoming a headache for the Biden administration which is seeking to curb the surging illegal border crossings.

According to data compiled by US Customs and Border Protection, around 42,000 migrants from India have crossed the southern border illegally between October 2022 to September 2023.

The data is alarming in the sense that is more than double the amount from the same period the year prior – when crossings by Indians were already at a record high.

How Many Indians Migrated Illegally?

Apart from the crossing on the Mexico border, an additional 1,600 Indians crossed from the northern border- four times the amount of the past three years combined. Meanwhile, the total number of migrant encounters increased from 2.38 million in 2022 to 2.48 million this fiscal year, marking a first in history.

Since 2007, the total number of illegal border crossings by Indians in a fiscal year has exceeded 5,000 only four times. However, all the illegal migrants turn themselves into Border Patrol, who then process them as asylum-seekers.

The data from the US Customs and Border Protection also said around 1.49 lakh Indians were caught trying to unlawfully enter the US between February 2019 and March 2023. The highest number of those detained were from Gujarat and Punjab.

Many of these illegal immigrants, mostly from Gujarat, cross the border through Canada, where they have either established themselves or are waiting for an opportunity to cross the border to enter the US.

The Route of Illegal Migrants

The Indians trying to enter the US illegally take different routes- the Canada border or the Mexico border. Historically, illegal immigrants from India have preferred to enter the US via the Mexican border rather than the Canadian border.

However, the latest data shows that the number of arrests on the US-Mexico border was close to the arrests at the US-Canada border.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Punjab-based Arshdeep Singh flew from New Delhi to Hungary, where he was kept in a small room for 10 days and given limited food that included some bread and water.

From Hungary, he flew to France and then to Mexico City, where he was locked in a room for a week. After another flight and a long bus ride, a man in a pickup truck took him near the US border. From Mexico, he crossed into California and was taken to a processing centre where he found others who had made similar journeys.

Several videos have appeared on social media depicting men and women travelling in different routes to reach America. One such route is the Darien jungle, a dangerous 106-km journey between Panama and Colombia that leads to Mexico from South America.

The route is considered to be among the riskiest and most difficult migration routes due to the presence of venomous animals like snakes, jaguars, and scorpions. In a video, a group of Indians is seen crossing through Darien Gap, according to Daily Mail.

What Has Led to Jump in Migrant Crossing?

The Indians living in the US are highly educated and many Indian citizens receive employer-sponsored H-1B temporary visas under the high-skilled worker category. Indians are also the second largest demographic of foreign students at the US universities.

However, there is also a surge in Indian migrants crossing the US border illegally due to a number of factors. The Indian immigrants have a high labour market participation in the US, with 72 percent of Indian immigrants aged 16 and older in the 2021 civilian labour force, making them more in population than both foreign and US-born populations, according to DW.

Many of the Indian migrants come to the country illegally for economic reasons as the lack of well-paying jobs back home make them desperate to leave.

Many of the migrants cross the border due to their preexisting networks within the Indian diaspora and the image of success they seen on social media, motivating them to take the risk for the “American dream.”

There have also been cases where smugglers pose as travel agents in villages, especially in states like Punjab and Haryana, and duping people of their savings in return for ‘American Dream’.

Most of the migrants from India, around 80 percent, are single adults and enter through Mexico-border near Arizona after taking what is known as “donkey flights”, meaning “to hop from one area to another”, via countries that don’t require visas for Indian nationals.

The US Migration Policy Institute’s (MPI) 2022 report also claimed that “growing religious and political persecution in India against non-Hindus” and “lack of domestic economic opportunities” were also driving Indians to countries like the US.