Complex supply chain routes that transport goods and services from manufacturing sites to high-demand European and American markets are the cornerstones of contemporary economic development. These supply chain routes are now supported by complex IT systems built on data-driven, internet-enabled infrastructure, providing real-time insights and tracking of products from source to consumer.
However, there are severe obstacles and even legal entry barriers to the free flow of appropriate labour and a productive workforce across nations. This obstacle has promoted illegal migration from the Global South to the North along routes called ‘donkey’ or ‘dunki’ in India.
At the same time, many 21st-century market innovations overlook the significant demographic transformation that has effectively reduced the supply of an appropriately trained labour force in certain sectors of the economy. While the whole of the West has already achieved the lowest birth rates ever recorded in human history, which reduces the supply of labour to productive sectors, the fully educated and skilled have moved away towards service sectors.
These transformations have caused labour supply ‘voids’ in many labour-intensive sectors that demand considerable physical power in spite of unprecedented mechanisation, such as in farming, food processing, animal husbandry, transportation, road construction, community garbage collection and landscaping, just to mention a few areas.
The geographic expansion of living spaces has also created innumerable employment opportunities, such as in residential construction, small restaurants, grocery stores, localised mobility and gas stations. In the presence of confusing and highly differentiated minimum wages across US states, there have emerged new employment opportunities in sectors that do not require high levels of skills and education. In effect, the need for a relatively cheap or low hourly wage rate is essential to contain the relatively high inflation rates that the US has been experiencing in the last three or four years.
The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) counts instances of illegal migrants being apprehended or expelled at the border as ‘encounters’. The politically recognised ‘undocumented’ immigrants are largely allowed to enter, live and work within the US under laws regulating asylum.
It may also be noted that one in two people who were stopped and found ‘inadmissible’ at US ports of entry between 2011 and 2022 were refused entry into the country.
Illegal immigration a relief to the shortage of labour
The US since long has encouraged immigration from across the globe. As a result, it has one of the most diverse labour forces practically in all sectors of the economy. Concurrently, the US has developed complex yet robust procedures for immigration, including for students, industrial and service sector workers, asylum seekers and families.
The year 2022 saw a high of 2.6 million immigrants, with over a million also given the permanent resident ‘green cards’. It is but natural that this new influx is among the largest the US has seen.
Earlier, it was customary that most illegal migrants in the US were from select Latin American countries who illegally crossed over through the southern (Mexican) border. But the number of such migrants who are Indian nationals has been rising for the last three years.
Surprisingly, in 2022 there were a total of 7,25,000 unauthorised migrants in the US from India – next only to Mexico and El Salvador – according to data compiled by Pew Research.
Between October 2021 and September 2023, the vast majority of all Indians who illegally crossed into the US were apprehended under Title 8 of the United States Code, under which asylum applications are processed.
It is also instructive to note that the number of ‘defensive’ asylum cases (asylum applications processed during removal proceedings) in the US involving Indian nationals has, on average, increased by 259% per fiscal year between October 2021 and September 2023.
Border authorities ‘encountered’ 96,917 Indian nationals who were trying to cross into the US during 2023. This number was 30,662 in 2021 and has been steadily increasing.
However, a number of them would have received some kind of documentation and sent to select major cities for rehabilitation. While it is not clear how the CBP takes its decision or how Title 8 (immigration) provisions and other American laws are applied – which should be the matter of further investigation – it is certain that many who present themselves at the border are also deported. Some of them then repeatedly attempt to enter the US.
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Causes of high illegal Indian migration to the US
There are two dominant explanations for the large number of illegal immigrants.
Often, high levels of unemployment are invoked as a cause for the ‘outflux’ of labour from India. This does not explain, however, as to why these immigrants belong only to certain Indian states.
The primary force that is fuelling the rise in illegal migration from India to the US is the aspiration of youth, often belonging to affluent families.
Aspirational migration or chasing the ‘American dream’ is commonplace in India, especially in states like Punjab, Kerala, Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Unemployed youth from these states are migrating to the US with hopes of sending remittances back home and leading an affluent life, in spite of the high risks involved in crossing the border illegally.
Families often use all their savings, sell their ancestral lands and property, and incur loans to raise the huge amounts needed to pay for a long and difficult illegal journey to arrive in multiple countries in Latin America and then undertake a trek through difficult and dangerous terrains to the US.
It is worth considering why such a large number of Indian youth would risk their lives and liberty to travel using dunki routes, often spending large amounts, sometimes over Rs 30 or Rs 40 lakh. Some dunki migrants from Punjab gave an account to the senior author of having spent over Rs 60 lakh (US$70,000) due to travel complications – they visited the Mexican border for a few months and then went back to Spain, where they waited to head towards the US-Mexico border again.
In December 2023, a chartered plane travelling from Dubai to Nicaragua, loaded with 303 Indians, likely illegal migrants, was grounded at an airport in France before it was sent back to India.
The most common approach is to travel on a tourist visa to the UAE, from where various dunki routes to many Latin American destinations can be taken. From here, surface transport, tracking and walking take over.
Lately, select European cities have also become facilitators for such illegal migrants, as we narrate in a case study below.
We had the opportunity to meet and interview several dunki migrants in Spain, as well as those who successfully crossed into the US and are now working in small roadside businesses and as Uber drivers.
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Case studies:
1. Madrid is a major European centre harbouring and facilitating illegal migrants, including from India. In fact, there are many hotels and hostels in Madrid that accommodate illegal transit dwellers who do not even carry Spanish visas.
The senior author interviewed a group of illegal migrants in transit during August 2024. Surprisingly, all were male youth (aged between 25 and 45 years) and had set the US as their destination, although a few were working in Madrid to recover some of the cost of living in Spain.
Most belonged to Punjab, while a few were from Haryana. They adhered to diverse religions and most seemed to have farming and rural backgrounds. Each evening, they would make WhatsApp calls to their family members back home in India, mostly to wives, parents and even children.
Every one of these male youth had already made huge payments to middlemen. The least reported amount was Rs 16 lakh, the most frequent was around Rs 25 lakh, and some reported having spent Rs 60 lakh in the last 15 months – they had returned from the Mexican border and were currently on a retry mission.
One evening, there was a late night party in the lobby of a hostel where all participants were Indian youth living illegally in the country. As the author approached this lobby, he was also invited to join the celebrations.
Upon enquiry, it was found that one of the youth was released by a Madrid court after 14 days of police detention. Although no one said why he was detained, he stated he had to engage an advocate back home in Punjab who was paid to secure his release.
This youth with no legal Spanish visa was back in the hostel to join the waiting dunki migrants and, surprisingly, was not deported.
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2. The second case study is of an hourly/daily wage worker in a gas station that also ran a grocery store and a coffee shop on Interstate 81 near Roanoke, Virginia in late September 2023. This state is governed under the leadership of the Republican Party, which postures as anti-migrant or anti-undocumented labour.
As the author asked the store worker to help fill a coffee cup, he was excited to find out if the author was from India and a citizen. On the reverse enquiry, it was found that he had arrived in the US about 100 days prior through the Mexican border and was guided to arrive at this gas station to work.
He also said he was given a room within the work area and given wages in US dollars. He was given some papers at the border, possibly a work permit, to be carried with him at all times and was aware that he would soon get a green card leading to citizenship thereafter.
At the border his experience with the US was pleasant, but he was asked why he intended to enter the country, following which he said he narrated a “fake” story that he belonged to a political party in Uttar Pradesh that was under attack by functionaries of the ruling BJP.
3. The senior author had another encounter with an illegal migrant who was an Uber driver in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in early 2023. Subsequent to his having a work permit for over a year, he was issued a green card. He was sure of becoming a citizen in another three years.
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Returning to India, it is important to point out that over the past five years or so, many million-dollar migrants have entered the US on what is known as an EB-5 visa, which is given to people who invest a minimum of $800,000 or $1,05,000 into an American commercial enterprise – depending on its location – in order to create jobs and offers a path to citizenship. The latest official data suggests that 13% of all EB-5 visas were given to applicants from India in 2022.
Thus, the ‘shadow’ value of an Indian illegal migrant to the US is up to $1 million dollars and even higher.
This dichotomy of the Indian labour force is rather puzzling and a matter which has to be looked after by policymakers in both countries.
Note that during 2024, on an average, 7,000-8,000 Indians illegally entered the US on a monthly basis. Further, it appears that the undocumented illegal migrants who are entering as asylum seekers are not from poor and vulnerable communities such as Muslims or Christians. They are affluent Hindu and Sikh youth from Gujarat, Punjab, Telangana as well as other north Indian states.
Despite all the risks involved, the dunki routes appear lucrative to those aspiring for the American dream. Compared to the one million dollars or so required for legal immigration through investor visas, the dunki migrants are chasing a million-dollar lottery.
Abusaleh Shariff and Attaulla Khan are with the US-India Policy Institute, Washington DC.
