According to the data published on the website of United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Around 2,00,760 Indians immigrated to US illegally as encountered by the United States authorities on their border between 2018 and 2022.
The Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs Muraleedharan, in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday , revealed the statistics while answering a question from CPM MP from Kerala Dr V Sivadasan. He also had asked for the number of Indian citizens, who have been residing as illegal immigrants in the US since 2018.
Numbers of illegal immigrants in last five years
Citing the CBP sources, the Union Minister provided required data. The numbers keep fluctuating as 8,027 citizens immigrated in 2018, 1,227 in 2019, 30,662 in 2020, 63,927 in 2021 respectively whereas 2022 had reported its peak of as many as 96917.
Data regarding the total number of Indian citizens who have lost their lives while crossing the US border has not been recorded yet, as stated by the Union Minister.
Govt’s initiative for Indian Immigrants
The Union Minister discussed the Ministry of External Affairs ‘s several initiatives for the Indian nationals such as Pravasi Bhartiya Bima Yojna (PBBY) and Pre-Departure Orientation and Training (PDOT) which empowers that migrated workers to undertake safe migration and have decent working and living conditions in their destined cities or countries.
Furthermore, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has rolled out the ‘Surakshit Jayen Prashikshit Jayen’ (Go Safe, Go Trained) campaign in 2018 to make the immigrants aware about all rules and prospects.
Migration agreements with foreign countries
India also signed partnership agreements of migration and mobility with France, the UK, Germany, Australia, Austria and Italy, aiming to foster India’s demographic dividend.
Mr Muraleedharan stated that labour and mobility partnership agreements or MoU have also been signed with Denmark , Japan, Portugal, Mauritius and Israel.
The Ministry, co-operated with the state govt’s are working together towards spreading relevant information on the requirements of safe and legal migration and employment opportunities overseas.
Category: World
Tags: Immigrants, Indians, Citizens, Illegal, Union Minister, migration
