Indians Are Third Largest Illegal Immigrant Population In US
WASHINGTON, DC (IANS) – Numbering around 725,000, Indians form the third largest population of illegal immigrants in the US after Mexico and El Salvador, according to new Pew Research Center estimates.
As of 2021, the research said the country’s 10.5 million unauthorized immigrants represented about three percent of the total US population and 22 percent of the foreign-born population.
Mexico, which accounted for 39 percent of the nation’s unauthorized immigrants in 2021 numbering around 4.1 million, was followed by El Salvador (800,000); India (725,000), and Guatemala (700,000).
While the number from Mexico dropped by 900,000 from 2017 to 2021, the number of illegal immigrants from other countries grew rapidly at the same time. In 2021, this population was 6.4 million, up by 900,000 from 2017.
India, Brazil, Canada, and former Soviet Union countries all experienced growth from 2017 to 2021.
According to new data from US Customs and Border Protection, an unprecedented number of undocumented Indian immigrants are crossing the US borders on foot.
From October 2022 to September 2023, 96,917 Indians were apprehended, expelled, or denied entry for having entered the US without papers.
Since borders opened after Covid, the number of undocumented Indians in the US has gone up with 30,662 encountered in the 2021 fiscal year and 63,927 in the 2022 fiscal year.
Of the nearly 97,000 encounters this year, 30,010 were at the Canadian border and 41,770 at the Southern border.
The Pew research also found that overall, about 7.8 million illegal immigrants were in the US labor force in 2021.
Only Florida and Washington witnessed increases in their unauthorized immigrant populations among the US states, while California and Nevada saw decreases.
Meanwhile, the lawful immigrant population grew by more than eight million — a 29 percent increase, and the number of naturalized US citizens grew by 49 percent in 2021.
Anil
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Stop giving out documents, and watch them all disappear.
If you ever go to a Punjabi liquor store. They are all operated by
Lucky Singh
Harry Singh
Lali Singh
Have you wondered why so many Luckys?
November 22, 2023One ID. Not required for cash jobs!
Mouli
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Just deport them all and don’t listen to their fake reasons for emigrating here.
November 22, 2023Partha Sircar
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Does this reflect India’s place in the economic world with the fourth highest GDP? I wonder!
November 22, 2023Pradeep Srivastava
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This is an interesting article! The most obvious and logical question that arises is, “If India is one of the fast-growing economies in the world, then why are so many Indians leaving India for the US?” I looked into this issue and came across an nbcnews.com article, “What’s behind the rise in undocumented Indian immigrants crossing U.S. borders on foot”, dated November 14, 2023, which sheds some light on this issue.
The reasons for the increased number of undocumented Indian immigrants crossing the US borders are as follows:
* An overall growth in global migration since the pandemic
* Oppression of minority communities in India like Muslims, Sikhs and Christians under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has been widely criticized for human rights violations.
* 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.
* 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.
* Smugglers’ use of increasingly sophisticated and in-demand methods of getting people to America
* Southern border has just become a staging ground for migrants from all parts of the world to come to the U.S. most quickly. Why would you wait for a visitor visa in Delhi if you can make it faster to the Southern border?
* The Canadian border has large stretches that are virtually unguarded at times
* People in Punjab might know people who went from their village, cousins and aunts and uncles and so forth, 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.
* Covid’s devastation has also created a crop of desperate migrants in India and around the world.
November 26, 2023