India – a large source of illegal migration – hopes to navigate Trump crackdown

JASALPUR, India – The family arrived at the ornately carved temple in western India bearing a special sweet of dried milk and clarified butter. It was a desperate offering for their son’s safety: He had just crossed into the US, only days before President Donald Trump took office promising a fierce crackdown on illegal immigration.

In their village in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the markers of migration are everywhere. Plaques on buildings trumpet donations from Indians in America. Houses sit locked and empty, their owners in the US – many legally, many not.

Mr Trump’s threats of mass deportations of immigrants in the country illegally have raised the loudest alarms closer to the US, such as in Mexico and Central America. But the fear and uncertainty – and the potential for political repercussions – are also rippling through India.

India is one of the top sources of illegal immigration to the US, according to the Pew Research Centre. As at 2022, more than 700,000 Indians without legal status were living in the US, the centre estimates, making them the third-largest group, behind Mexicans and Hondurans.

Some Indians arrive legally and overstay their visas. Others cross the borders without authorisation: In 2023 alone, about 90,000 Indians were arrested as they tried to enter the country illegally, according to US government data.

India’s government, which has expanded defence, technology and trade ties with the US, has expressed confidence that it is better positioned than most to weather the global reckoning with another “America First” administration. Mr Modi has a bond with Mr Trump, calling him “my dear friend” as he congratulated him on taking office for a second time.

Nevertheless, there are signs that New Delhi is trying to keep Mr Trump on its good side by cooperating with his clampdown on illegal migration.

Indian news outlets reported this past week that the government has been working with the new US administration to take back 18,000 Indian immigrants who are under so-called final removal orders.

According to those reports, India’s goal is to protect its legal pathways for immigration to the US, like skilled-worker visas, and avoid the punitive tariffs that Mr Trump has threatened to impose over illegal migration. Helping 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 the specifics of the news reports to The New York Times. But they noted that deportations from the US to India were not new – more than 1,000 Indians were sent back in 2024 – and said that they were working with the Trump administration.

“Our position is that we are against illegal migration,” said Mr Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India’s Foreign Ministry. “We have been engaging with US authorities on curbing illegal immigration, with the view of creating more avenues for legal migration from India to the US.”

Those legal routes – namely, H-1B visas for skilled workers and visas for students – have been the subject of heated debate among Mr Trump’s supporters. Mr Elon Musk and other tech moguls say the H-1B visas are needed to recruit the best talent to the US. More nationalist voices say the jobs filled by those visa holders should go to Americans.

The State Department said the Trump administration was working with India to “address concerns related to irregular migration”. The new Secretary of State, Mr Marco Rubio, held his first bilateral meeting on Jan 21 with India’s Foreign Minister, Mr S. Jaishankar – an indication of the growing importance of the US-India relationship.

The intensified focus on migration is politically sensitive in India.

Mr Modi, the most powerful Indian leader in decades, has cast himself as a driving force behind economic growth that he says will eventually make India a developed nation. But his own home state Gujarat, once hailed as an economic miracle under his leadership, is one of India’s largest sources of illegal migration to the US, according to police officials.

Though Washington is looking to India as an alternative to China in global industrial dominance, its uneven economy – by some measures, one of the most unequal in the world – still impels large numbers of Indians to take enormous risks to make it to the US.

In the Mehsana district of Gujarat, almost every family has a member in the US, legally or illegally. Some return only for annual visits to see relatives. Mehsana is frequently in the news, with reports of its migrants dying while trying to climb a border wall into the US, reach its shores by boat, or make their way over the frozen northern border during winter.

Migration to the US has traditionally been a status symbol among Gujaratis. Families who have no members there have trouble matching their children in marriages, said Jagdish, 55, a worker at the local college in the village of Jasalpur whose son and daughter-in-law are in the US illegally.

Jagdish, who asked that his last name not be used, said his son spent five months in Mexico waiting to cross the border five years ago. Upon entering the US, he was jailed for three months before being released. He now works at a cafe there, and his wife joined him in 2024.

It cost the family more than US$70,000 (S$94,000) to get them to the US – a mix of “hard-earned money, my life’s savings” and loans, Jagdish said.

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

Outside the village temple, a husband and wife who run a Subway franchise in the US, where they have lived for two decades, were on their once-a-year visit. The husband, Mr Rajanikant Patel, tried to offer some reassurance about Mr Trump, couched in the “no one knows” air that characterises much 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 labourers there. It’s such a huge country. Who will work and manage there?”

Indians began moving to the US in large numbers in the 1960s, when India was among the world’s poorest nations and US immigration policy was easing.

The pull is strong even today, with India now the world’s fifth-largest economy. Given its immense inequality, economic growth has not necessarily translated into better services or higher standards of living for most.

Mr Patel’s wife, Ms Nila Ben, said: “The quality of life here and there cannot be compared.”

Immigration consultants said they had seen a decline in visitors as word spread that it was becoming harder to enter the US, a tightening that began during the Biden administration and that Mr Trump is moving to drastically increase.

Mr Varun Sharma, director of an immigration consultancy, said about half of his potential clients have inquired about illegal routes into the US. He politely turns them down, he added.

Many immigrants in the US without legal permission now come from the new middle class. In some cases, Indians who arrive on student visas stay past the expiration date. In other cases, migrants first fly to a third country on a visitor’s visa, then slowly make their way to the US by land or sea.

Mr Vishnu Bhai Patel, a lemon trader from a nearby village, said he hoped Mr Trump “shows some leniency for divided families like mine – half of the family is here and half there”. Mr Patel added that he hoped his daughter, who is studying engineering in the US, could stay on after graduating and then invite him to come legally, too.

“My dream is for her to never come back,” he said. NYTIMES