E-Paper
6.4 million illegal immigrants living in US, 725,000 are Indians: Study
Indians form the third largest population of illegal immigrants in the US, numbering around 725,000, Pew Research Center has found
Indians form the third largest population of illegal immigrants in the US, numbering around 725,000, Pew Research Center has found. Mexico and El Salvador follow the US in the list.
The research also found that the country’s 10.5 million unauthorised immigrants represented approximately three per cent of the total population in the US. It further represented 22 per cent of the foreign-born population.
“The total number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. from countries other than Mexico has grown rapidly. In 2021, this population was 6.4 million, up by 900,000 from 2017,” the research says.
“Almost every region in the world had a notable increase in the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. from 2007 to 2021. The largest increases were from Central America (240,000) and South and East Asia (180,000),” it adds.
Data from US Customs and Border Protection suggests that a massive number of undocumented Indian immigrants are crossing the US borders on foot. As many as 6,917 Indians were apprehended, expelled or denied entry for entering the US without documents between October 2022 to September 2023. The number of undocumented Indians in the US went up significantly after borders opened due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While 30,662 encountered in the 2021 fiscal year, 63,927 encountered in the 2022 fiscal year. With 97,000 encounters this year, 30,010 were at the Canadian border and 41,770 at the Southern border.
“Overall, about 7.8 million unauthorized immigrants were in the U.S. labor force in 2021. That was up slightly from 2019 but smaller than every year from 2007 through 2015,” the research says.
California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois were the states with the maximum number of unauthorised immigrants. Florida and Washington were the only US states to witness increases to their unauthorised immigrant populations. The states that saw decreases were California and Nevada.
“Meanwhile, the lawful immigrant population grew by more than 8 million, a 29% increase, and the number of naturalized U.S. citizens grew by 49%. In 2021, naturalized citizens accounted for about half (49%) of all immigrants in the country,” the research says.
