Illegal immigration from India to US surges, doubles in 2021-22

13,655 Indians have been arrested in the last two months, compared to 6,865 in the same period in 2021

NEW YORK: The death of an Indian man who fell while trying to scale the border wall in Texas puts a spotlight on illegal immigration from India to the United States, which has surged along the border with Mexico in the past two months. increase.

U.S. Border Patrol agents caught 4,297 Indians crossing the Mexican border in October and November, according to U.S. government data. That’s 1,426 for his two months last year, and 16,236 for the entire fiscal year through September.

Overall, the number of Indians arrested at the border and elsewhere by US authorities has more than doubled since last year.

According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, U.S. officials encountered 63,927 Indians entering the country illegally during fiscal year 2021-22, which ended in September, down 109% from 30,662 in the previous fiscal year. Increased.

A total of 13,655 illegal immigrants from India were arrested in the last two months alone, up from 6,865 in the last two months of 2021, according to data.

Only 19,883 Indians undocumented in the United States were arrested by CBP in the 2019-20 fiscal year, according to officials.

Indians are just part of the phenomenon of illegal immigration to the United States, which has surged since the election of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been tasked with stemming the flow of immigrants from Latin America.

Harris claims the border is “safe,” but U.S. officials have documented 2.77 million illegal encounters with people of various nationalities in the U.S. during the fiscal year ended September. This is a 41% increase from 1.96 million in the previous period.

In 2019-20 there were just 646,822 matches played.

The Biden administration, which is struggling to deal with the surge in people trying to enter the United States illegally at its southern border, was granted a reprieve from the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

Biden maintained the rules his predecessor Donald Trump enacted as a health measure for the Covid-19 pandemic, although he sent Latin Americans from most countries home to Mexico if found. , withdrew in May after pressure from the Democratic left.

A group of Republican state officials went to court against it, and the Supreme Court temporarily postponed the cancellation until February, staving off an expected flood to the border.

The rule known as Title 42 does not apply to Indians or non-Latin Americans. Because Mexico won’t take them back.

The number of illegal immigrants is only those who have been caught by CBP, and a few more may have managed to evade authorities, enter legally but stay beyond their visas and have no presence in the country. The data do not include those for whom malpractice has become illegal.

According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in the 2019-20 fiscal year, the latest period for which data are available, 14,389 Indians were suspected of overstaying, up from 13,203 the previous year.

On the northern border with Canada, a family of four Indians was found frozen to death about 12 meters from the U.S. border in January, while 84 Indians have died in the last two months. arrested.

237 Indians were arrested there during the U.S. fiscal year that ended in September, compared with 42 in the previous 12 months and 129 in the period before that.

Most people arrested by U.S. authorities are usually notified to appear before an immigration officer and released, with little or no follow-up, and very few are detained.

A national breakdown of how those arrested by CBP were treated was not available.

34,230 Indian asylum applications were pending in immigration courts last month, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a database maintained by Syracuse University.

People can seek asylum for a variety of reasons, including religious or political persecution, domestic violence, and threats due to sexual orientation, but must prove it to a judge.

In fiscal year 2019-20, the latest period for which data is available from the Department of Homeland Security, 1,337 Indians were granted asylum, down from 2,256 the previous year.

According to the ministry, 1,302 Indians defected in 2017-2018.

A breakdown of the reasons for granting asylum was not available.

TRAC provides a breakdown of the languages ​​spoken by people whose asylum claims are pending and by Punjabi speakers who may have come from India, Pakistan or elsewhere, numbering 21,961.

6,770 Hindi speakers, 6,315 Bengali speakers (who may be from India, Bangladesh, or elsewhere), and 376 Tamil speakers (who may be from India, Sri Lanka, or other countries) may have come from) were included.

In addition, TRAC listed 222 Hariyamvi speakers, 166 Telugu speakers and 32 Marathi speakers.

According to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2,312 Indians were deported from the United States in 2019-2020 and 1,616 in 2018-2019.

Indian border deaths included family members, but most Indians arrested by US authorities are single adults. It made up 11,780 people in a month.

Last year, 6,577 people visited the hospital with their families, and 1,736 in the last two months.

Brijkumar Yadav fell to her death on December 14 while holding her 3-year-old son while climbing the border wall built by the Trump administration between San Diego and Mexico.

According to reports, his wife also fell, but survived on the U.S. side, and the child was reunited with her.

Jagdishkumar Patel, 39, his wife Vaishaliben, 37, his daughter Vihangi, 11, and son Dharmik, 3, were walking in a snowy field on January 19, 2019 at the Canadian border. ) was found frozen to death. , some distance from the US border.