India has expressed readiness to collaborate with the US to identify and repatriate thousands of its citizens reportedly living illegally in America.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio and India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar discussed “irregular migration” on Tuesday after president Donald Trump took office, according to the US State Department.
India has committed to helping repatriate as many as 18,000 Indians living illegally in the US, Bloomberg News reported, a move which is being interpreted as an attempt by India to placate the new US president and avoid a trade war.
In one his first actions as president, Mr Trump said he would prioritise tackling illegal immigration and issued an executive order to declare an emergency and station troops along the US-Mexico border.
India hopes the Trump administration will safeguard legal immigration pathways for its citizens, including student visas and the H-1B programme for skilled workers. H-1B visas are for highly skilled immigrants typically working in tech, healthcare, engineering and finance. Official data shows that Indian citizens made up nearly three quarters of the 386,000 H-1B visas issued in the US in 2023.
On Tuesday, Mr Trump weighed in on the H-1B visa issue saying: “I like both sides of the argument, but I also like very competent people coming into our country, even if that involves them training and helping other people that may not have the qualifications they do.”
India is also keen to preserve avenues for student visas, which allow a large number of its nationals to pursue higher education in the US.
Sources told Bloomberg that 18,000 people of Indian origin living in the US illegally have been identified, though the actual number is likely to be much higher. The Pew Research Center estimates there are approximately 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US, making them the third-largest group after migrants from Mexico and El Salvador.
The Indian government has not confirmed any figures but Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, said that “as part of India-US cooperation on migration and mobility, both sides are engaged in a process to deter illegal migration”.
He added: “This is being done to create more avenues for legal migration from India to the US.”
“The latest deportation of Indian nationals from the US by a chartered flight is a result of this cooperation,” he added, referring to a flight in October.
India’s concerns over the prospect of a trade war with the new US administration are not unfounded. Mr Trump has repeatedly singled out India for criticism of its high import taxes, claiming they harm American businesses, and has pledged to impose reciprocal duties on India.
Nonetheless, Mr Trump enjoyed good personal relations with India’s prime minister Narendra Modi during the Republican’s first term in office, with the two hosting rallies for each other in Ahmedabad and Houston respectively. Trade issues aside, India’s ruling BJP has talked up Mr Trump’s November victory as being good news for the two countries’ ties.
Relations between the US and India continued to deepen during the Biden administration, despite India being accused of organising the attempted assassination of a separatist leader on American soil and its refusal to sever ties with Russia over the Ukraine war. The US sees India as an important counterbalance to China in the Asia-Pacific region, and both are members of the four-country Quad grouping.
It was also reported that repatriating illegal migrants could play into Mr Modi’s objective of curbing secessionist movements abroad, such as the Khalistan movement, which advocates for an independent Sikh state in India. India has been cracking down on this movement, and officials have indicated that some of its supporters in the US and Canada could be residing there illegally.
