As President Barack Obama mulls executive action to give relief from deportation to some of the 11.2 million illegal immigrants in the US, a new report said about 450,000 of them are from India.
[highlight]450,000 undocumented Indians in US: study
450,000: The number of undocumented Indians living in the United States, according to the Washington-based Pew Research Center. The number is substantially higher than the estimates of the Department of Homeland Security. According to DHS, there were 260,000 unauthorized immigrants from India in 2012, up from 120,000.
1 in 8: Every eighth person of Indian origin living in this country is an illegal immigrant. The number of Indian Americans is estimated to be 3.18 million.
4th: India is the fourth largest source of the number of unauthorized immigrants, according to Pew. The countries ahead of India are Mexico (5.9 million), El Salvador (675,000) and Guatemala (525,000). There is a significant number of undocumented immigrants from three other Asian countries, China (300,000), Philippines (200,000) and Korea (180,000).
26: The number of states where Mexicans constitute the majority of all illegal immigrants, according to Pew.
1: The number of state where Indians make up the majority of illegal immigrants. That state is New Mexico.
4 percent: Four percent of all undocumented immigrants in the United States are from India. In comparison, Indian Americans constitute 1 percent of the US population.
68,458: The number of legal permanent residents from India in 2013, according to DHS. It is 6.5 percent of all legal permanent residents in the United States.
[/highlight]It is hard to get a precise snapshot of the regional breakup of undocumented Indians in the US, but this group appears to be dominated by Sikhs and Punjabis, according to members of the community. Such anecdotal assertions were underscored by the case of around three dozen Sikh men who were detained in El Paso, Texas, last year.
The young Sikh men fled India early in 2013 seeking political asylum in the US. Their journey took them through Central America, Mexico, and across the border into the US. They were detained at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing centre in El Paso, Texas. The men went on hunger strike in April to protest their almost year-long detention. Some ended up being hospitalised.
“In terms of border crossings, there definitely is a pattern of Indian Sikhs, not just the stories of detainees in El Paso, but even what we are seeing in New York… from among Indians, most are Punjabi Sikhs,” says Fahd Ahmed, acting executive director of DRUM — South Asian Organizing Center. About a year ago, there was an influx of Gujaratis, but that appears to have been an isolated wave, he adds.
Sikhs, like most other immigrants, come to the US driven by a variety of motivations, primarily a search for better economic opportunities. “It is the quintessential story. It is the same set of hopes and dreams that drove my parents to come to the US from India 44 years ago,” points out Suman Raghunathan of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT).
Many Indians also come to be reunited with their families. “There are folks who have been here 10, 15, 20 years, many of whom have US citizen children or have family members who are US citizens or legal permanent residents,” she says.
Source: Various