American Dream: Haryana youngsters queue up big time on the US border
Migration fad is not merely confined to a few districts now but is spreading across and beyond the state, says Sibash Kabiraj, SIT chief. Queues of undocumented migrants arriving from Haryana, particularly from its rice bowl districts of Karnal and Kurukshetra, are getting longer at the southern border of the United States (US).
Queues of undocumented migrants arriving from Haryana, particularly from its rice bowl districts of Karnal and Kurukshetra, are getting longer at the southern border of the United States (US).

Some arrive after hopping from one country to another for months, travelling by air and road, while others opt for a more comfortable touchdown at Mexico. But the final destination for each one of them is the United States of America.
“Some take the arduous foot journey after coughing up huge sums to Coyotes (a colloquial expression for human smugglers) to reach close to the US border in Mexico and then scale the giant fence. Many just surrender to the US Customs and Border Protection officials and seek asylum,” said a 26-year-old asylee from Kurukshetra.
Undocumented migrants, mostly youngsters in their 20s and 30s from Punjab, entering America has been quite common. The contagious trend, however, seems to have caught the fancy of youngsters in neighbouring Haryana as well. In 2020 a special high-risk charter mission conducted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement had repatriated 132 undocumented migrants from Haryana and Punjab. Of them, 76 were from Haryana.
Political and religious persecutions are mostly cited as grounds in their asylum pleas before immigration courts, though the Western countries now have stringent filters to evaluate the asylum pleas. “Many present themselves as followers of Dera Sacha Sauda cult, claiming persecution after the sentencing of Dera chief,’’ said an asylee.
‘Migration fad spreading’
Inspector general of police, Ambala Range, Sibash Kabiraj, who heads a special investigation team (SIT) to deal with immigration frauds, says the migration fad is not merely confined to a few districts now but is spreading across and beyond the state.
“These agents have devised travel packages. Shell out ₹60 lakh to avoid the treacherous foot journey through South America jungles. Instead, they would put the aspirants on a flight to Mexico with a promise to get them over southern border,” says Kabiraj, adding, “Those who can’t afford have to undertake long foot journeys across Colombia, Panama to reach Mexico.”
State home minister Anil Vij says the state government is preparing a draft Bill to regulate immigration agents and agencies.
Nirvikar Singh, professor of economics at University of California, Santa Cruz, explains why Haryana youth may be going the Punjab way. “The demand side factors are the same. Low growth in agriculture, lack of good alternatives for jobs, general lack of opportunity, including educational pathways to other types of jobs,” he says. “On the supply side, it’s a market expansion. The intermediaries (go between) have an infrastructure that can most easily be extended into neighbouring geographies, including rural Haryana and Rajasthan.”
Navneet Kaur, a board member of Innovation Law Lab, an immigrant rights organisation in Portland, Oregon, says that doing small time jobs is a social stigma for youngsters in India. Parental pressure adds to the problem. “But parents are okay with the idea of their kids migrating to countries like the US and Canada because there is no judgment there,’’ says Kaur.
Times are changing, Haryanvis getting at par
Undocumented migrants interviewed by HT sought to remain unidentified for asylum reasons.
“Hawa badal rahi hai. Times are changing,” says Chander (name changed), an electronics engineering graduate from Kurukshetra. He is one of undocumented Haryanvi youngsters headed to the southern US border. The 33-year-old who failed to get a US visa after several attempts finally decided to take the donkey route. “Even if my asylum plea gets turned down, I still would have made more money as compared to my earnings in India,’’ he says. Jagjit (name changed) from Karnal traversed across Africa, Europe and South America for 36 days, ending up on the Mexico-US border in 2022 summer.
“I was made to scale a 26-feet-high wall using a makeshift ladder and rope to get across to California in pitch dark,’’ he recounts. He says the trick is to find an agent who has a high success rate in facilitating entry of undocumented migrants.
A high school pass out from Karnal, Jitender Kumar (name changed) says his parents wanted him to leave the country after he was shot at during a brawl. “It took me four months, five international flights and road trip through 12 nations to reach Mexico in 2023,’’ he says.
NYC, the preferred destination
New York seems to have emerged the preferred destination for Indian asylum seekers, including those from Haryana. Data from Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research organisation at the Syracuse University, suggests there has been a shift in terms of numbers of undocumented migrants from India seeking asylum at New York instead of California since 2021.
Ajit Singh (name changed), an asylee from Karnal who has applied for asylum in New York City says they have a higher success rate in terms of grant of asylum in liberal New York.
