Indians rank second in the US in terms of people securing naturalisation or citizenship but are also not far behind when it comes to living illegally in that country.
Indians were the third largest group of unauthorised immigrants in the US after Mexico and El Salvador, an analysis by Pew Research for the 2019-22 period shows.
The findings are significant as US President Donald Trump, who returned to the White House on January 20 after four years, has ordered a crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
While Mexico, with over 4 million people, accounted for over a third of unauthorised immigrants, India, with 725,000, had a 6.6 percent share.
“Other countries with large numbers of unauthorized immigrants have also seen increases in recent years. Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Ecuador, India, and countries making up the former Soviet Union all experienced growth from 2019 to 2022,” the Pew study, released in July 2024, said.
Of the 1.7 million illegal persons of Asian descent residing in the US, nearly half were Indians.
This is also evident in the rise in the number of deportations, voluntary or otherwise, from the US to India.
Analysis shows that an average of 340 Indians were removed during the Obama years. The number rose to 1,250 a year during Donald Trump’s first term (2017-21). Trump removed twice as many Indians as his successor Joe Biden.
News agency Bloomberg on January 21 reported that India and the US have identified some 18,000 illegal Indian migrants to be sent back home.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar, who was in Washington for the Trump swearing-in, has said India has always been open to the “legitimate return” of undocumented Indians.
Reversal in trends
A comparison shows that illegal migration to the US surged after the Covid outbreak, which upended the global economy, throwing millions of lives in uncertainty.
The number of illegal migrants in the US reached a peak of 12.2 million in 2006-07, it declined to 11.4 million when Barack Obama took office in 2008 and further to 11 million by 2015.
It declined further to 10.2 million when Trump demitted office in 2020 but has been on the rise since.
In 2022, 11 million people, or 23 percent of the US’ foreign-born population, were unauthorised, almost as much as lawful permanent residents.
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