India, a Big Source of Illegal Migration, is hoping to weather the Trump Storm

The family arrived at the ornately carved temple in western India with a special sweet made from dried milk and ghee. It was a desperate bid for her son’s safety: he had just crossed into the United States, days before President Trump took office promising to crack down on illegal immigration.

In Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home village of Gujarat, signs of migration are everywhere. Plaques on buildings proclaim the contributions of Indians in America. The houses sit locked and empty, their owners now in the United States — many legally, many not.

Mr. Trump’s threats of mass deportation of illegal immigrants have raised the loudest alarm in countries closer to the United States, such as Mexico and Central America. But fear and uncertainty — and the potential for political repercussions — are also rippling through India.

India is one of the main sources of illegal immigration to the United States. According to the Pew Research Center. The center estimates that by 2022, more than 700,000 undocumented Indians would be living in the United States, making them the third largest group behind Mexicans and Hondurans.

Some Indians come legally and overstay their visas. Others cross borders illegally: In 2023 alone, nearly 90,000 Indians were arrested trying to enter the US illegally, according to US government data.

India’s government, which has expanded defense, technology and trade ties with the United States, has said it is confident it is better positioned than most to deal with a global reckoning with another “America First” administration. Mr Modi has a bond with Mr Trump, calling him “my dear friend” when congratulating him on his second term in office.

Nevertheless, there are signs that India is trying to keep Mr. Trump on his good side by cooperating with his crackdown on illegal migration.

Indian news outlets reported this week that the government was working with the new administration to take back 18,000 Indian illegal immigrants who were under the latest removal order.

According to those reports, India’s goal is to preserve legal channels for immigration to the United States, such as skilled worker visas, and avoid punitive tariffs that Mr. Trump has threatened to impose on illegal immigration. Aiding his administration could also spare India the embarrassment of being caught up in the publicity of Mr. Trump’s crackdown.

Indian officials would not confirm specifics of the reports to The New York Times. But they noted that deportations from the U.S. to India were not new — more than 1,000 Indians were sent back last year — and said they were working with the Trump administration.

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said, “Our position is that we are against illegal migration.” “We are in contact with US authorities to prevent illegal immigration in order to create more opportunities for legal migration from India to the US.”

Those legal routes, namely H-1B visas for skilled workers and visas for students, have become hotly debated among Mr. Trump’s supporters. Elon Musk and other tech moguls say H-1B visas are needed to recruit top talent to the United States. More nationalist voices say the jobs filled by these visa holders should go to Americans.

The State Department said the Trump administration was working with India to “address concerns about illegal immigration.” New Secretary of State Marco Rubio held his first bilateral meeting with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar on Tuesday — a sign of the growing importance of US-India relations.

Increasing focus on migration in India is politically sensitive.

Mr. Modi, the country’s most powerful leader for decades, has positioned himself as the driving force behind economic growth that he believes will ultimately transform India into a developed nation. But it is his home state of Gujarat that was once hailed as an economic miracle under his leadership It is one of India the biggest sources illegal migration to the United States, according to police officials.

While Washington has sought India as an alternative to China in its global industrial dominance, its unequal economy — by some measures, one of the most unequal in the world — still forces many Indians to take huge risks in moving to the United States. .

In Gujarat’s Mehsana district, almost every family has a member in the United States, legal or illegal. Some return only for the annual visit to see aunts and uncles. Mehsana is often in the news, with reports of migrants dying trying to scale the border wall into the United States, reach its shores by boat or cross the frozen northern border in winter.

Migration to the US has traditionally been a status symbol among Gujaratis. Families with no members in the U.S. struggle to match their children in marriage, said Jagdish, 55, who works at a local college in the village of Jasalpur, whose son and daughter-in-law are in the U.S. illegally.

Jagdish, who asked that his last name not be used, said his son waited five months to cross the border into Mexico five years ago. After entering the United States, he spent three months in prison before being released. Now he works in a cafe there, and his wife joined him last year.

More than $70,000 was spent to get the family to the United States — a mix of “hard-earned money, my life savings” and loans, Jagdish said.

“I don’t buy new clothes, I cut down on fruit and milk,” he said. “I have to pay back the loans”

Outside the village temple, a husband and wife who run a Subway franchise in the United States, where they have lived for two decades, visit once a year. The husband, Rajanikant Patel, tried to offer some reassurance about Mr. Trump, sitting in the air of “nobody knows” that characterizes much of the talk about the new administration.

“Trump will do what he has to do,” Mr. Patel said. “But Trump needs people to work there. We are workers there. It is such a big country. Who will work and manage it?’

In the 1960s, when India was among the poorest countries in the world and America’s immigration policy was relaxed, Indians began to immigrate to the United States en masse.

India is still going strong today with the fifth largest economy in the world. Given the extreme inequality, economic growth has not translated into better services or higher living standards for many.

Mr Patel’s wife Nila Ben says: “The quality of life there and here is incomparable.

Immigration consultants said they saw visitors drop as word spread that it was getting harder to enter the US, the crackdown that began under the Biden administration and that Mr. Trump was heading for a sharp increase.

Varun Sharma, director of immigration consulting, said about half of his potential clients ask about illegal routes to the United States. He politely turns them down, he said.

Many undocumented immigrants now come from the new middle class. In some cases, Indians on student visas overstay. In other cases, migrants first fly to a third country on a visitor visa, then slowly make their way to the United States by land or sea.

Vishnu Bhai Patel, a lemon trader from a nearby village, said he hoped Mr Trump would “give some leniency to families like mine that are divided – half here and half there”. He said that he hopes that his daughter, who is studying engineering in the United States, will be able to stay there after graduation and then invite her to come legally.

“My wish is that he never comes back,” she said.

Wonderful Torch Prepared a report from New Delhi.