3 Arrested For Entering US Illegally While Jumping Off Moving Train From Canada
India-West News Desk
NEW YORK, NY – The unfortunate reports of Indians entering the US illegally continues with another dramatic story. This time, a group of three leaped from a moving freight train originating from Canada onto the International Railroad Bridge. They were apprehended by US Border Patrol agents on March 12.
According to authorities, Border Patrol agents stationed in Buffalo observed the individuals jumping from the train, leaving behind an injured woman unable to move due to her injuries. Officers, including Erie County Sheriff’s deputies and US Customs and Border Protection officers, provided initial medical assistance to the injured woman before pursuing and capturing the suspects.
Further investigation revealed that three of them were identified as Indian nationals, while a fourth person was from the Dominican Republic. The three men are currently detained at the Batavia Federal Detention Facility awaiting deportation hearings. They face charges under Sections 212 and 237 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Meanwhile, the injured woman continues to receive medical treatment at a local facility, officials said.
pemba
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Sure, Indians have a strong urge and craze of the USA.
March 17, 2024Pradeep Srivastava
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I have been curious to find out why so many Indians have decided to move to the US illegally especially when the Indian economy is doing so well. The following article from nbcnews.com sheds light on this issue.
“What’s behind the rise in undocumented Indian immigrants crossing U.S. borders on foot
There were almost 97,000 encounters with Indian migrants in the U.S. over the past year, nearly a fivefold increase from the same period from 2019 to 2020, when there were almost 20,000.
Nov. 14, 2023, 10:35 AM PST”
The following excerpt from the article is very informative.
“Who’s migrating and immigrating and why
Though still relatively low compared to migration from Mexico and Central America, the number of undocumented Indians crossing U.S. borders has been growing for several years, said Pawan Dhingra, a professor of American studies at Amherst College. But the growth this past fiscal year was unprecedented.
He and other South Asian American scholars worry that the recent spike might have something to do with worsening conditions for minorities like Muslims, Sikhs and Christians in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has been widely criticized for human rights violations.
“Many of them are Sikh, seeking asylum based on how they feel they’ve been mistreated and targeted in Punjab under Modi’s government,” he said. “Now the U.S. has a big problem on its hands. It’s cozying up to Modi in every possible way, in terms of state visits and rhetoric, but it has an increased set of asylum-seekers from this country.”
A series of laws deregulating India’s agricultural sector in 2020 threatened to upend the lives of many farmers, especially in the North Indian state of Punjab. Modi’s government, among other things, removed the minimum prices of key crops, leading to massive protests around the country that were sometimes met with violence from the state.
In September 2021, over 500,000 farmers gathered in the state of Uttar Pradesh to protest the laws.
The bills were formally repealed in December 2021.
But experts say the destabilization and the scale of the protests were enough to constitute an asylum claim.
“They have a perception that they have no future in that country,” Chishti said.
In comparison to an India that migrants might feel is pushing them out, a promised new life in the U.S. seems ideal. The general success of Indian Americans in the U.S. or of previous migrants who have taken the same journey are some of the factors that pull people in.
“People in Punjab might know people who went from their village, cousins and aunts and uncles and so forth,” Khanna said. “That creates more waves of movement.”
Decades-long visa backlogs have made it difficult for would-be immigrants to join their families in the U.S., leaving many with little recourse. On top of that, Covid’s devastation has also created a crop of desperate migrants in India and around the world, experts said.
With social media-savvy groups masquerading as travel agencies, hopeful migrants often pay their life savings to make the journey, Khanna and Chishti said.
“The poorest people in the country do not migrate; they can’t afford to,” Dhingra said. “But those who will undergo such challenges to migrate are still desperate for some kind of economic or political change.”
With lofty claims and misinformation often circulated on Facebook and WhatsApp and even plastered around small towns in India, migrants might not know exactly what they are getting themselves into, they said.
“It is extremely treacherous, but people might not actually know how treacherous it is,” Khanna said.
Last year, a lower-income family of four with two young children was found dead near the U.S. border with Canada. Having made the journey from a village in Gujarat through a similar illegal pathway, they were separated from the rest of the group during a blizzard. Their bodies were found just 13 yards from the border.
“You have to really either mortgage your life savings or mortgage your life to take this difficult journey,” Chishti said. “
March 19, 2024