As US President-elect Donald Trump prepares for office, stricter immigration policies are already being implemented. A list created by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reveals that nearly 1.45 million people are at risk of deportation. This includes around 18,000 undocumented Indians.
Reportedly, around 90,000 Indians have been caught attempting to cross the US border through illegal means in the past three years. Many of these individuals hail from states like Punjab, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh, per experts. For many undocumented Indians, the process of legalizing their status is complex, with waiting periods that can stretch two to three years.
However, India is not the country with the highest number of undocumented immigrants in the US. There are several countries like Honduras and Guatemala top the list of immigrants with 261,000 and 253,000 undocumented individuals, respectively. Among Asian countries, China leads with 37,908, while India ranks 13th with 17,940 as per the reports of November 2024.
India is also considered an “uncooperative” country in the deportation process, along with Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Venezuela. This happens due to the lack of cooperation, which could make it harder to resolve deportation issues and affect diplomatic relations.
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Under the current border security and stricter immigration policies, ICE’s document outlines the challenges, including conducting interviews, issuing travel documents on time, and ensuring the return of nationals by scheduled flights. All of this falls under part of the deportation process. With Trump promising the largest deportation effort in US history, thousands of undocumented Indians with final deportation orders could soon be sent back to India.
Meanwhile, during a recent interview with Time magazine after Trump was named ‘Person of the Year 2024,‘ he stated that he would make business ‘very hard‘ for countries that refuse to take back migrants. He added such countries would face ‘substantial tariffs.‘ “I’ll get them into every country, or we won’t do business with those countries,” Trump said.
