India Ready To Take Back 18,000 Citizens From US As Trump Begins Crackdown On Illegal Immigrants: Report
Indians form the third largest undocumented immigrants in the US at 7,25,000, next only to Mexico (40 lakh) and El Salvador (7.5 lakh), according to 2024 Pew Research Centre estimates.
The Indian government is prepared to work with the newly elected Donald Trump government in the US to identify and take back around 18,000 citizens, who illegally entered the country, a Bloomberg report has said.
The two countries have identified 18,000 Indian citizens who would be sent back home, Bloomberg quoted sources familiar with the development as saying. The sources said that the number of illegal immigrants can be much higher than the estimate even as the illegal immigrants in the US are yet to be identified.
The news comes a day after Trump, in his inaugural speech, vowed strict measures to curb illegal immigration. "We will not be invaded, we will not be occupied, we will not be overrun, we will not be conquered," Trump said.
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Trump has for long promised a crackdown on illegal migration and the issue has been one of the reasons behind his resounding victory in the November elections against Kamala Harris. Shortly after taking the oath, Trump proposed to end birthright citizenship and imposed an 'emergency' at the country's borders with Mexico.
The Bloomberg report, meanwhile, said that New Delhi is willing to comply with the White House and avoid a trade war. India is hoping that in return for its cooperation, the Trump administration would protect legal immigrants entering the country through student visas and H-1B program for skilled workers, it added.
Indians form the third largest undocumented immigrants in the US at 7,25,000, next only to Mexico (40 lakh) and El Salvador (7.5 lakh), according to 2024 Pew Research Centre estimates.
The report also said that any delay in taking back illegal immigrants could adversely hit India's labour and mobility agreements with other countries.
The share of illegal immigrants from India in the US has been rising modestly in recent years, especially at the northern American border, where Indians make up around a quarter of illegal crossings and the biggest share of unlawful migrants stopped at the entry point.
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Donald Trump, in order to curb the entry of illegal migrants to the US, said on Monday that he was planning to impose tariffs of as much as 25 per cent on Mexico and Canada by February 1 and blamed the two nations for "allowing vast numbers of people" into the US.
He also pledged to first round up those with criminal charges or convictions, which number around 655,000, before turning on the 1.4 million who have been served deportation orders.
The report of the curbs against illegal migration comes even as Indians comprise over 78 per cent of the total H-1B applicants to the US in the last four years.
The data from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services revealed that between April and September 2024, out of 130,000 H-1B visas issued, around 24,766 or around 19 per cent were allocated to Indian-origin companies. The H-1B visa programme allows US companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations temporarily.
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