Illegal Immigration From India Jumps 125 Percent

[Riaz Haq]

Illegal Immigration From India Jumps 125 Percent
By Riaz Haq
http://riazhaq.blogspot.com

There are an estimated 270,0000 illegal Indian immigrants in the United States, according to 2006 figures from the US Department of Homeland Security. With 125% percent increase from 2000 to 2006, India represents the fastest growing source of illegal immigrants to the United States, reports San Jose Mercury News, a major Silicon Valley newspaper. In absolute numbers, Central and South American nations account for the bulk of the estimated 11.5 million illegals, with India a distant second with 270,000 in 2006.

The vast majority of the estimated 2.5m Indians in the United States are legal immigrants with about a half of them with citizenship status. Highly educated with many in professionals such as doctors and engineers, Indians are a very affluent ethnic group whose median household income is 62% higher than the national average.

The top three geographies with the highest concentrations of Indians in the US are San Francisco Bay Area at number 1, New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area at number 2 and Chicago at number 3.

As the demand for high-tech workers in Silicon Valley has grown, so has the influx of Indians on H-1B visas. At 44%, Indians accounted for the lion's shares of H1B visas in 2005-06, five times the number from the second-place Chinese.

The estimated number of people of Pakistani origin in the United States is about 500,000. The top three geographies are NY/NJ/CT tri-state area, Chicago metropolitan area and Southern California. Pakistani Americans are the sixth largest Asian American ethnic group after Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Vietnamese, Koreans, and Japanese communities. The demographics and socio-economic status of Pakistanis in the United States are quite similar to Indians'. Pakistan does not show up in the list of top 10 countries of origin for legal or illegal immigration to the United States.

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an NPR report on the abuse of H1b visas:

If you scroll through the government's visa data, you notice something surprising. The biggest employer of foreign tech workers is not Microsoft — not by a long shot. Nor is it Google, Facebook or any other name-brand tech company. The biggest users of H-1Bs are consulting companies, or as Ron Hira calls them, "offshore-outsourcing firms."

"The top 10 recipients in [the] last fiscal year were all offshore-outsourcers. And they got 40,000 of the 85,000 visas — which is astonishing," he says.

Hira's a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He's also the son of Indian immigrants and has a personal interest in questions of labor flow across borders.

For the past decade, he's been studying how consulting firms use temporary work visas to help American companies cut costs. He says they use the visas to supply cheaper workers here, but also to smooth the transfer of American jobs to information-technology centers overseas.

"What these firms have done is exploit the loopholes in the H-1B program to bring in on-site workers to learn the jobs [of] the Americans to then ship it back offshore," he says. "And also to bring in on-site workers who are cheaper on the H-1B and undercut American workers right here."

The biggest user of H-1B last year was Cognizant, a firm based in New Jersey. The company got 9,000 new visas. Following close behind were Infosys, Wipro and Tata ‑‑ all Indian firms. They're not household names, but they loom large in tech places like the Seattle suburbs.

Cutting Costs

Rennie Sawade, a software designer with 30 years of experience, grew up in Michigan — watching the decline of the auto industry. And so, he went into computers in search of a more secure career. But that's not how it turned out.

"Basically, what I see is, it's happening all over again," Sawade says.

Programmers like him tend to be freelancers, or contract workers, and the big consulting firms are the competition. Sawade remembers when he almost landed a plum job at Microsoft.

"I remember having phone interviews and talking with the manager, having him sound really excited about my experience and he was going to bring me in to meet the team," Sawade recalls.

And then: nothing. He called his own placement agency to find out what happened.

"And that's when they told me, 'Oh, they hired somebody from Tata Consultancy.' And they actually told me on the phone, the woman I was talking to said her jaw just dropped when they found out how little Microsoft was paying this person from Tata Consultancy to do this job," he says.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/04/03/176134694/Who...

[Riaz Haq]

Most new immigrants to #USA in 2013
1 #China
2 #India
3 #Mexico

http://econ.st/1QhZqKs 

For decades, Mexicans have been the largest contingent in America’s 41.3m foreign-born population. But the annual inflow has slowed dramatically. In 2013 Mexico was overtaken as the biggest source of new migrants by both China and India, according to the Census Bureau. In 2007, just before the recession, Mexicans made up 23.6% of all annual migrants. By 2013 more jobs at home and tighter border controls had reduced this to 10%, while China’s and India’s combined share rose to a quarter. These new migrants are even younger, and well-educated. Around a third of America’s 1.1m foreign students are Chinese, and some 70% of H1B visas for highly skilled jobs go to Indians.
Read more at http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21653646-futures-asian#...

[Riaz Haq]

Toys ‘R’ Us Brings Temporary H1B Workers From #India to U.S. to Move Jobs Overseas. . #outsourcing http://nyti.ms/1PNxnyi

When Congress designed temporary work visa programs, the idea was to bring in foreigners with specialized, hard-to-find skills who would help American companies grow, creating jobs to expand the economy. Now, though, some companies are bringing in workers on those visas to help move jobs out of the country.

For four weeks this spring, a young woman from India on a temporary visa sat elbow to elbow with an American accountant in a snug cubicle at the headquarters of Toys “R” Us here. The woman, an employee of a giant outsourcing company in India hired by Toys “R” Us, studied and recorded the accountant’s every keystroke, taking screen shots of her computer and detailed notes on how she issued payments for toys sold in the company’s megastores.

“She just pulled up a chair in front of my computer,” said the accountant, 49, who had worked for the company for more than 15 years. “She shadowed me everywhere, even to the ladies’ room.”

Continue reading the main story
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By late June, eight workers from the outsourcing company, Tata Consultancy Services, or TCS, had produced intricate manuals for the jobs of 67 people, mainly in accounting. They then returned to India to train TCS workers to take over and perform those jobs there. The Toys “R” Us employees in New Jersey, many of whom had been at the company more than a decade, were laid off.

A temporary visa program known as H-1B allows American employers to hire foreign professionals with college degrees and “highly specialized knowledge,” mainly in science and technology, to meet their needs for particular skills. Employers, according to the federal guidelines, must sign a declaration that the foreign workers “will not adversely affect the working conditions” of Americans or lower their wages.

In recent years, however, global outsourcing and consulting firms have obtained thousands of temporary visas to bring in foreign workers who have taken over jobs that had been held by American workers. The Labor Department has opened an investigation of possible visa violations by contractors at the Walt Disney Company and at Southern California Edison, where immigrants replaced Americans in jobs they were doing in this country. Four former workers at Disney have filed discrimination complaints against the company. The companies say they have complied with all applicable laws.

[Riaz Haq]

#India's tech graduates fear #America may shut them out. #Trump http://cnnmon.ie/2lnKkq1 via @CNNMoney

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/26/technology/india-engineers-immigrat...

Ayush Suvalka has a lot going for him. He's about to graduate from one of the best engineering colleges in India and has already secured a job with the Bangalore branch of JPMorgan (JPM).
The 21-year-old computer science student isn't planning to spend his career in India's version of Silicon Valley. He hopes the big American investment bank will move him to its U.S. headquarters after a few years.
"It's always been America because the companies, all the big companies, are there," Suvalka said. "The life there is... really amazing."
President Trump and his desire to put "America First" could throw a wrench in those plans.
Related: Tech industry braces for Trump's visa reform
The Trump administration is looking to make changes to a host of visa programs, including restricting the H-1B visa that allows thousands of Indian techies to work in the U.S.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said last month that this may be done "through executive order and through working with Congress."

That could spell the end of the American Dream for Suvalka and many of his peers.
"Probably America is now out of the picture," he said.
Efforts to restrict foreign workers through legislation are already in progress -- multiple bills seeking curbs on the H-1B program have been introduced by Republican and Democrat lawmakers this year.
Dr. Savita Rani, head of career counseling at the Ramaiah Institute of Technology where Suvalka studies, says jobs at outsourcing companies are in high demand because of the potential to move to the U.S.
But the possibility of America's doors slamming shut is already sowing confusion among students.
"They were shattered and they did not know what to do," Rani said. "At this juncture, America has got a cold and India is sneezing."

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In Bangalore, meanwhile, Suvalka is already sketching out a Plan B.
"I'm thinking of Canada or New Zealand," he said, mentioning two countries whose immigration websites saw a huge surge in traffic as Trump closed in on his election win last November.
"Canada is a bit cheaper than America and it has amazing job opportunities," the young engineer added. "You can get a visa easily."

[Riaz Haq]

The Patel family, who froze to death while trying to illegally enter the #US from the #Canadian border, hailed from the Dingucha village in #Gujarat, #India , which has a long history of its residents trying to sneak into #America, no matter what the cost

https://thewire.in/world/the-gujarati-family-that-froze-to-death-in...


Despite constant humiliation, deportation and even the loss of life, more and more Gujaratis are willing to undertake dangerous practises to reach the United States and get a shot at that elusive ‘American dream’. Now, one family from a nondescript village in the state has even frozen to death.

The family, which included a three-year-old child, died whilst being trafficked across the border into the US from Canada. What’s more, another such family is thought to be missing.

The family hailed from Dingucha village, some 12 kilometre from the Gujarat’s capital Gandhinagar, with a registered population of 3,000 people. Most of residents of this village give a wry, proud smile when they say, “More than 1,800 people from our village, the majority, live in America.”

Every house in Dingucha is replete with Costco candy and jalepeño wafers. Locals from the Patel-dominated area take pride in the fact that people from there began migrating to America from the early 70s, “when there were no issues,” as an older resident of the village said.

The death of the family is very sad, the residents of Dingucha said, noting that they will find the agent who promised a “first-class human smuggling exercise” and had charged them Rs 65 lakh to do so. They are trying to get in touch over the phone with the relatives of a family in the village which was part of another group trying to make their way into the US.


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Last year, a 24-year-old man from North Gujarat’s Mehsana district decided to leave the country with his family because he was being harassed by local politicians. With help from an agent, he reached the Mexican border. From there, they were joined by a local agent ferrying another group of people crossing the border illegally.

However, his dream of settling in the US was shattered and he and the others in the group were arrested by US border authorities and taken to a detention centre in Louisiana. The agent had reportedly been paid a whopping 30 lakh to get the family into the US.


Similarly, a few years ago, a woman from North India, along with her daughter, was trying to cross from Mexico into the US through the Arizona desert. After spending 22 hours in the scorching heat, both she and her daughter died.

In 2007, then BJP MP Babubhai Katara was even caught trying to illegally send a young woman to Canada on his wife’s diplomatic passport. A subsequent investigation had revealed that an amount of around Rs 30 lakh had been fixed to do so.

The Trump administration had begun building a wall along the US’s border with Mexico and since then, undocumented immigrants have been increasingly trying to enter from Canada. While the Mexican side of the border has a tropical climate similar to India’s, the Canadian border in the North has a harsh, freezing climate.

These instances raise another question: what could compel people to become so desperate to leave the country as to endanger their lives? Could government intervention to set up new schemes to promote start-ups or innovation help keep Indians within India?

This responsibility – to think of way to prevent such disasters by creating avenues for gainful employment and assure Indians of a bright future within their country – lies with the government.

[Riaz Haq]

Since the beginning of the 2022 fiscal year that started last October, a record 16,290 Indian citizens have been taken into US custody at the Mexican border. The previous high of 8,997 was recorded in 2018.

https://news.yahoo.com/us-immigration-why-indians-fleeing-231910481...

Experts point to a number of reasons for the increase, including a climate of discrimination in India, an end to pandemic-era restrictions, a perception that the current US administration is welcoming to asylum seekers and the ramping-up of previously established smuggling networks.

While some migrants are coming to the US for economic reasons, many are fleeing persecution back home, said Deepak Ahluwalia, an immigration lawyer who has represented Indian nationals in Texas and California.

The latter group range from Muslims, Christians and "low-caste" Hindus to members of India's LGBT community who fear violence at the hands of extreme Hindu nationalists, or supporters of secessionist movements and farmers from the Punjab region, which has been shaken by protests since 2020.

Conditions for many of these groups have deteriorated in recent years, international observers say.

Immigrants such as Mr Singh often see the US as "the ultimate gateway" to a better life, said Mr Ahluwalia, the lawyer.

The enormous distances involved, however, make the trip to the US extremely challenging.

Traditionally, Indian migrants who arrive at the US-Mexican border use "door-to-door" smuggling services, with journeys arranged from India to South America. They are often guided the entire way and travel in small groups with their fellow countrymen who speak the same language, rather than individually or with only family members.

These networks often begin with India-based "travel agents" which outsource parts of the journey to partner criminal groups in Latin America.

Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the Washington DC-based Migration Policy Institute, said that the number of Indian migrants is also rising as a result of a "ripple effect" that takes place when those who have used these services successfully recommend them to friends or family back in India.

"It naturally expands and draws more migrants," she said. "Of course, that doesn't happen without migrants wanting to leave originally."

The experiences of Manpreet - a 20-year-old from Punjab who asked that only his first name be used - are typical of those who have taken the southern route in the past. A vocal critic of India's ruling BJP (Bharatiya Jannata Party), he fled the country after being persecuted for his political beliefs.

"From Ecuador I took a bus to Colombia, and from Colombia I took a bus to Panama," Manpreet recalled in an interview with the BBC from California. "From there, via a boat, I [went to] Nicaragua and Guatemala, and then Mexico and entered the US."

Even guided by seasoned smugglers, the trip to the border is often one that is fraught with dangers, including robberies and extortion at the hands of local gangs or corrupt authorities or extreme weather, injuries and illness.

These dangers were highlighted in 2019, when a 6-year-old Indian girl from Punjab was found dead in the scorching desert near the border town of Lukeville, Arizona - a case that made headlines in India. It was later reported that she died in temperatures of over 42 C (108 F) after her mother left her with a group of other Indians to go search for water.

[Riaz Haq]

#India's #visa temples attract #Hindu devotees aspiring to go abroad. These temples can be found in almost any Indian city with a #US consulate – 104.5 WOKV

https://www.wokv.com/news/world/indias-visa-temples/UL6DOVPCITX7RTE...


CHENNAI, India — (AP) — Arjun Viswanathan stood on the street, his hands folded, eyes fixed on the idol of the Hindu deity Ganesh.

On a humid morning, the information technology professional was waiting outside the temple, the size of a small closet – barely enough room for the lone priest to stand and perform puja or rituals for the beloved elephant-headed deity, believed to be the remover of obstacles.

Viswanathan was among about a dozen visitors, most of them there for the same purpose: To offer prayers so their U.S. visa interviews would go smoothly and successfully. Viswanathan came the day before his interview for an employment visa.

“I came here to pray for my brother’s U.K. visa 10 years ago and for my wife’s U.S. visa two years ago,” he said. “They were both successful. So I have faith."

The Sri Lakshmi Visa Ganapathy Temple is a few miles north of the airport in Chennai (formerly Madras), a bustling metropolis on the Coromandel Coast in southeast India -- known for its iconic cuisine, ancient temples and churches, silk saris, classical music, dance and sculptures.

This “visa temple” has surged in popularity among U.S. visa seekers over the past decade; they can be found in almost any Indian city with a U.S. consulate. They typically gain a following through word of mouth or social media.

A mile away from the Ganesh temple is the Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Navaneetha Krishnan Temple, where an idol of Hanuman – a deity who has a human body and the face of a monkey — is believed to possess the power to secure visas. Also known as “Anjaneya,” this god stands for strength, wisdom and devotion. In this temple, he has earned the monikers “America Anjaneya” and “Visa Anjaneya.”

The temple’s longtime secretary, G.C. Srinivasan, said it wasn’t until 2016 that this temple became a “visa temple.”

“It was around that time that a few people who prayed for a visa spread the word around that they were successful, and it's continued,” he said.

A month ago, Srinivasan said he met someone who got news of his visa approval even as as he was circumambulating the Anjaneya idol — a common Hindu practice of walking around a sacred object or site.

On a recent Saturday night, devotees decorated the idol with garlands made of betel leaves. S. Pradeep, who placed a garland on the deity, said he was not there to pray for a visa, but believes in the god's unique power.

“He is my favorite god,” he said. “If you genuinely pray – not just for visa – it will come true.”

At the Ganesh temple, some devotees had success stories to share. Jyothi Bontha said her visa interview at the U.S. Consulate in Chennai went without a hitch, and that she had returned to offer thanks.

“They barely asked me a couple of questions,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised.”

Bontha’s friend, Phani Veeranki, stood nearby, nervously clutching an envelope containing her visa application and supporting documents. Bontha and Veeranki, both computer science students from the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh and childhood friends, are headed to Ohio.

Both learned about the visa temple on the social media platform Telegram.

Veeranki said she was anxious because she had a lot riding on her upcoming visa interview.

“I’m the first person in my family to go the United States,” she said. “My mother is afraid to send me. But I’m excited for the opportunities I’ll have in America.”

Veeranki then handed over the envelope to the temple’s priest for him to place at the foot of the idol for a blessing.

“We’ve been hearing about applications being rejected,” she said, her hands still folded in prayer. “I’m really hoping mine gets approved.”

If she and Bontha make it to Ohio, they want to take a trip to Niagara Falls.

“I’ve always wanted to see it,” Bontha said.

[Riaz Haq]

More than 150 #Indian students face expulsion from #Canada over #fake papers. In a similar case four years ago, 129 Indian students in the #US were arrested for enrolling in a fake university. #fraud #India #education #visa https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64988228

"My mind is dark. I cannot move forward, nor go back," says Dimple K, an Indian woman who's been living in Canada on a student visa since December 2017.

She is now among more than 150 Indian students who have been told to leave the country by the Canadian Border Security Agency (CBSA).

The CBSA alleges these students arrived in the country on the basis of forged college admission letters.

The students claim innocence and insist that they were duped by their immigration consultation agency in India that provided them the document.

Many who received the eviction letters are now embarrassed to come forward, fearing stigma.

Living in a western country is seen as a matter of prestige by many Indian families, especially in Punjab, the state to which Dimple belongs.

In a similar case four years ago, 129 Indian students in the US were arrested for enrolling in a fake university.

Emails sent by the BBC to the Indian high commission in Canada and the Canadian high commission in India did not get a response.

Dimple is married and comes from a middle-class family in Jalandhar district. Daughter of a tailor father and a homemaker mother, she has three siblings.

A post-graduate in science, she tried to get a job in India for a long time, but was unsuccessful.

The hope of a better life with her husband prompted her to apply for a student visa in Canada.

From her cousin, she heard of an immigration agency - which police say has been shut for the past seven months - and used its services to get a Canadian visa.

"The agency told me that one of the colleges had accepted my documents, and gave me the admission letter which they said was from the college," she tells the BBC over phone.

Dimple paid the agency 1.2m rupees ($14,525; £11,970). The amount was to cover her college fee. The agency also gave her a certificate to prove that she had funds to take care of living expenses in Canada.

But Dimple says within two days of her arrival in the country, she was informed by the agency that there had been a strike in her college. They advised to apply to another college.

In December 2019, Dimple completed her diploma in computer networking and received her work permit. But in May 2022, a year after she had applied for permanent residency, she was informed by Canadian authorities that her application had a forged document.

In January, she was served an exclusion order - which usually means an order to leave the country. She has been told to leave Canada and not return for at least five years.

She has challenged the order in a federal court in Canada.

Her attorney Jaswant Singh Mangat is representing over three dozen students who are in a similar situation.

In most of these cases, he says, fake admission letters were provided at an exorbitant fees. These were used to obtain visas.

After finishing their courses, many of these students obtained their work permits and then applied for permanent residency. That's when the immigration department discovered that there were issues with their admission documents.

"Couldn't immigration officials detect the documents were fake at the airport, or while issuing student visas, [so] how was I expected to find that out?," asks Dimple.

[Riaz Haq]

Jayant Bhandari
@JayantBhandari5
The fastest growing economy in the world, India, is sending shiploads, trainloads and planeloads of people to the USA. What would the US fast food chains do without Indians?

https://x.com/JayantBhandari5/status/1804692050274820477

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A new $72,000 migrant smuggling route to the US starts with a charter flight, and many Indians are waiting to board - The Economic Times

https://m.economictimes.com/nri/migrate/a-new-72000-migrant-smuggli...

When a Legend Airlines Airbus A340 landed at San Salvador airport on July 15 after an 18-hour flight from the United Arab Emirates, its crew quickly realized something was wrong.


Salvadoran officials refused to connect the jet bridge to allow the roughly 300 passengers, all Indian nationals, to disembark, according to three former crew members on the flight who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Several passengers told the cabin crew they planned to travel onward to Mexico and cross the border there illegally into the U.S., one crew member said. Others said they were going on vacation to the Mexican border city of Tijuana, another crew member said.

Salvadoran officials were already on high alert when the flight landed. Several months earlier, U.S. and Salvadoran authorities had noticed an unusual pattern of charter aircraft landing in El Salvador carrying primarily Indian nationals.

The planes were arriving full and leaving empty, a U.S. official said. And some passengers claiming to be tourists brought only a backpack for weeks-long trips. U.S. authorities later discovered that nearly all of the charter passengers disembarking in San Salvador had crossed the border into the U.S., the official said.

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About 9% of irregular crossings at the U.S. border in the 2023 fiscal year involved migrants from outside Latin America, or about 188,000 people, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security data. A decade ago, people from outside the Americas accounted for barely 1% of irregular arrivals.


The Biden administration attributes the historic levels of migration to global economic and political instability. Trump has blamed the high border crossings on Biden's policies.


Indian nationals were the largest single group from outside the Americas encountered at the border last year, comprising about 42,000 arrivals. Migrants from 15 West African countries accounted for another 39,700, with most from Senegal and Mauritania.

The Biden administration has been working with some regional governments as well as travel companies to curb the flow of migrants.

In March, it began revoking U.S. visas for owners and executives of charter airlines and other companies thought to be facilitating smuggling. The State Department's Jacobstein declined to name individuals or companies affected or how many had faced restrictions. Reuters was unable to independently establish which companies had been targeted.

In May, the administration warned commercial airlines to be on the lookout for passengers who might be intending to migrate illegally to the U.S. Apprehensions on the border in April fell 48% from December, U.S. government data show, which U.S. officials attribute in part to tougher enforcement by Mexico.

El Salvador's Vice President Felix Ulloa said in an interview that his government has "permanent, constant, and effective" collaboration with the U.S. to fight irregular migration. The introduction of visa requirements and $1,000 transit fees on citizens of India and many African nations last October has "drastically reduced" the number of migrants transiting through San Salvador, he said.

But as some routes for illegal migration get squeezed, others open up.

[Riaz Haq]

Arif Rafiq
@ArifCRafiq
Vivek is apparently going to be sending a lot of Indians back home:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-abo...

https://x.com/ArifCRafiq/status/1813373927739048264

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https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/11/16/what-we-know-abo...

After Mexico, the countries of origin with the largest unauthorized immigrant populations in the U.S. in 2021 were:

El Salvador (800,000)
India (725,000)
Guatemala (700,000)
Honduras (525,000)
India, Guatemala and Honduras all saw increases from 2017.