No country for illegal migrants
Deportations of illegal migrants from the US, including 104 Indians, spark debate in India as anti-immigrant sentiment rises globally.
The deportation of illegal migrants from the United States (US) has been expected ever since Trump 2.0 began. Thousands of people have been rounded by the Trump administration and the illegal migrants dispatched to their homelands in military aircraft. The arrival of 104 Indians in Amritsar in a US military plane has triggered criticism and a debate in Parliament. Harrowing as their narratives may be, it’s hard to ignore the fact that these people knowingly violated the law to enter another country, with some hoping to claim asylum on the strength of fraudulent claims of persecution back home. And it is hard to ignore the fact that many took perilous routes to reach the US, paying small fortunes to traffickers.
New Delhi has little choice but to accept these deportees — between 2009 and January 2025, the US sent back nearly 15,700 Indian nationals. US department of homeland security estimates suggest some 18,000 Indians are residing illegally in the US while a Pew Research Center report put the number at 725,000 in 2022. As external affairs minister S Jaishankar stated in Parliament all nations are obliged to take back their nationals found illegally living abroad. The minister expressed concern over the fact that the deportees were in restraints and said New Delhi would take this up but added that this has been part of the standard operating procedures of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities since 2012.
Anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise in the western world. Even legal avenues and vehicles of immigration are under threat. Globalisation created an enabling climate for migration to the developed world, even though the West was always ambiguous about freeing up the labour market to immigrants. Yet, the rise of liberal politics after the Cold War and the economic opportunities that came with globalisation facilitated migrations from Asia, Africa and South America to Europe and North America. That phase seems to be drawing to a close. Most countries are witnessing a rise of nationalist sentiments that defer to nativism and even xenophobia. Given this, the fact that countries are cracking down on illegal immigrants isn’t surprising.
In India, migration is influenced by historical and cultural factors including aspirations that influence young men to go West, risking deportation. The deportation flights will have a chilling effect on potential migrants exploring “dunki” routes and, hopefully, prevent people from paying huge sums to touts and risk the law on foreign shores. As Jaishankar told Parliament, the government needs to target the illegal migration industry. But it would also help if it addressed the root causes of the economic distress that pushes some to seek better pastures, even if this is done illegally.
