INDIA At least 149,000 Indians entered the US illegally since 2019

These are people who mostly come from the western state of Gujarat. After receiving real training and a fake visa for Canada or Mexico, they attempt the trek. Traffickers demand up to 65,000 euros per person. The impulse to emigrate comes from the community itself, but also from the difference in wages.

Gandhinagar () – Between February 2019 and March 2023, at least 149,000 Indians tried to enter the United States illegally, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection, one of the police agencies responsible for customs and border security. . These figures are very high if one takes into account that they were recorded during the years of the Covid-19 pandemic, when flights were suspended for a long time. Most of the Indians apprehended at the border (between the United States and Canada or between Mexico and Canada) come from the western state of Gujarat, where there are authentic training camps run by traffickers to train migrants to jump over walls and barbed wire barriers.

In January 2022, 5,459 Indian migrants were apprehended for illegally entering US territory, of whom 708 were apprehended at the Canadian border. A year later there was an increase of 36%, with 7,421 Indians detained in January of this year, of which 2,478 were apprehended at the Canadian border.

In January last year, attention was drawn to this phenomenon after an Indian family from the town of Dingucha in Gujarat froze to death on the US-Canada border. Following the incident, Indian police further investigated the illegal immigration scheme and found that human smugglers provide migrants with fake passports and visas worth around €65,000 per person. The investigation also found that, hidden on ranches and farms upstate, there are training camps that teach migrants to scale 50-foot walls, crawl through barbed wire fences, and run with heavy sacks to learn not to get caught by border police. “Those who want to migrate train to live with little water and food,” the police had explained in December 2022 after revealing the existence of these camps. “They are taught to survive on just sweets and chocolates, while the children are given formula milk for days. This prepares them to face adversity should the journey take time or they are forced to face adversity.” hostile conditions”.

Over the years a paradoxical situation has arisen: on the one hand, according to estimates by the United States Census Bureau, there are some 587,000 Indians living in the United States without documents, while there are at least 2.7 million living on land Americans on regular visas, most of them after obtaining employer sponsorship for the temporary H-1B visa, which is granted to highly educated and skilled foreign workers. Indians are also the second largest nationality at US universities, after Chinese students.

The migration route from Gujarat to the United States is not a new phenomenon: “The first phase began in the mid-1960s, when educated doctors and engineers immigrated to the United States through legal means; that’s when the brain drain began,” explained sociologist Gaurang Jani, a professor at the University of Gujarat in Ahmedabad. “In the second phase, their extended families began to move once they got sponsors. And in the last wave, all classes of the Patidar began to move to the West and didn’t bother to take jobs and perform tasks that they would have considered inferior.” of their dignity in their place of origin”. The Patidar are a Gujarat caste descended from former landlords who have seen their income from agriculture dwindle over the years.

The support (even financial) for the new migrants comes from the diaspora itself: on Hindu festivals, the temples receive large donations, which are then redistributed among the community that remains in India. In the town of Dingucha, almost everyone has a relative living in North America, and according to police investigating illegal immigration fraud, it is sometimes communities abroad that are the “real agents that help people emigrate.” .

But a decisive piece of information, of course, are the salaries: for a couple hired to work in an American motel, for example, the income is around 200 dollars a day, or 14 thousand rupees, and includes room and board. In Gujarat, however, many struggle to earn even 10-12 lakhs a month.