Detention of undocumented Indian migrants at US borders drops 62%, lowest in four years

The United States Customs and Border Protection caught 34,146 Indians trying to enter the country without valid documents between October 2024 and September this year, according to data compiled by the agency.

This marked a reduction of 62% as compared to the previous corresponding period of October 2023 to September 2024, when Indians constituted 90,415 of about 29 lakh undocumented immigrants who were caught trying to enter the US from Mexico and Canada.

The data showed that this was also the lowest number of Indians who have been intercepted by the Customs and Border Protection while illegally entering the US since 2022.

More than 63,927 undocumented Indian migrants were caught trying to enter the US between October 2021 and September 2022. The number was 96,900 between October 2022 and September 2023.

This year, 6.9 lakh undocumented migrants from several countries, including Mexico, China and Colombia, attempted to enter the US, which was a significant fall from the 29 lakh last year.

According to the data, 5,047 Indians attempted to enter the US without documents through the country's southwest land border with Mexico, while 14,054 through the northern border with Canada.

Of the total Indians who were intercepted, 31,480 were single adults and 2,522 were categorised as individuals in a family. Ninety-one were unaccompanied minors.

This came against the backdrop of the Donald Trump administration tightening immigration regulations since January. In some cases, the US government had used military aircraft to repatriate undocumented migrants.

In India, Opposition leaders had criticised the Union government after videos showed deportees on US military aircraft having been shackled. However, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the Rajya Sabha in February that the persons had been shackled in keeping with past procedure.

In September, the Union government said that 2,417 Indians had been deported from the US since January.

In May, the US Department of State announced visa restrictions on persons working with Indian travel agencies found to have been “knowingly facilitating illegal immigration” to the United States.

A 2022 US Department of Homeland Security report estimated that 2.2 lakh undocumented Indian migrants were living in the country.

Source: Scroll
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