Deportation 'fear': Inside steep decline in Indians' illegal immigration to US

THe American daydream was formerly a phenomenon among Indians, so often so that many of them were willing to occupy illegal routes, traverse multiple borders, bear harsh conditions and spend loads of money just to be on the American land. However, the wave seems to be simmering down, with Indian illegal immigration to the US seeing a 69% drop from 2023.The big drop in numbers featured in the records by US border authorities through May of FY2026.As reported by HT earlier, 20,614 encounters with Indian migrants were recorded in this financial year, as opposed to the 67,000 encounters in FY2023, which was the peak of illegal immigrations involving Indians.The sharpest decline is reportedly around the US land borders. The southwestern side recorded only 417 encounters with Indian migrants, a 99% plunge from what was seen in FY2023 and the northern border recorded 2,250 encounters, down 91% from the same period in FY2024.The figure has raised a pertinent question: What drove this huge drop in Indians attempting illegal entry into the US?Trump's big crackdownThe answer to this question may lie in Trump's intensified illegal immigration and crackdown and a significant rise in deportation of whom the US administration labels “illegal aliens” ever since the President's second term began. Indians have also been hugely impacted in this crackdown.In the first half of 2026 alone, 1,076 Indians were deported from the US, according to a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) report released in June, underscoring the scale of the immigration crackdown just six months into the year.This figure surpassed 3,500 last year, the highest in the past 16 years, according to figures provided by the government in Parliament in 2025.In February last year, Indian deportees were sent back in batches as planes landed in Amritsar and Delhi. The shackling of women and children on a deportation flight around the same time had also triggered a controversy.Also Read: Dozens of Indians likely deported from Canada this year on criminal groundsHas deportation fear impacted Indians?Just over a month after the latest MEA report on the number of Indian deportees, a peek into US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows how the crackdown has heavily impacted the rush for illegal entry into the US. As stated in the earlier HT report, encounters with Indian migrants attempting to cross the southwestern border from Mexico have plunged 99%, while those along the northern border with Canada have dropped 91%.This drop is largely attributable to Trump's immigration crackdown. According to Gilbert Guerra of the Niskanen Center, people have come to realise that the expense that goes into making these illegal trips is not propotional to the outcome anymore, which may be causing the decline in illegal immigration.Also Read: Which country deported the most Indians in the past 5 years? No, it is not US"They are not ones that people can try again and again the way that they could if they were from, say, Guatemala, and could just very easily try if they fail first. It’s a lot of money to invest to put forth towards an outcome,” says Guerra of illegal migrants from India.(With inputs from Shashank Mattoo).