Deportation shadow falls on over 20,000 ‘undocumented’ Indians

Indeed, if the Trump Administration moves on deportations, among the first affected could be the 20,407 “undocumented” Indians, as of November 2024,  who are either facing “final removal orders” or are, currently, in detention centres of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Of these, 17,940 “paperless” Indians are not in detention but are under “final removal orders,” and another 2,467 are in detention under the ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

This makes Indians the fourth largest group by nationality, and the first among Asians, in ICE custody. As of November 2024, the total number of non-citizens, from all countries, detained added up to over 37,000.

A removal order is issued by an immigration judge which becomes a “final removal order” when affirmed by the appellate authority.

Incidentally, ICE has named India with Iraq, South Sudan, and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the list of 15 “uncooperative” countries reluctant to accept their “undocumented’ citizens back from the US.

Classification as “uncooperative,” covers: “hindering” ICE’s “removal” efforts by refusing to conduct consular interviews; refusing to accept charter removal missions; delaying removal proceedings.

According to ICE’s 2024 Annual Report, the number of Indians deported has already jumped five-fold in four years: from 292 in 2021 to 1,529 in 2024.

However, deportation data is often computed loosely. Sharing information on a charter flight that brought back an unspecified number of ‘undocumented’ adult Indians to Punjab last October, an assistant secretary with the Department of Homeland Security put the number of Indians repatriated through charter and commercial flights between October 2023 and September 2024 at 1,100.

On December 6, Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh told Lok Sabha that “as per US Government data, a total of 519 Indian nationals were deported to India” between November 2023 and October 2024.

The apparent discrepancies possibly stem from the inclusion of voluntary returns, departures and withdrawals — cases where a non-citizen is allowed to leave the US or withdraw an application for admission without any immigration consequences — in ICE’s removal records, along with repatriations executed under final removal orders.

Non-citizens can appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) in the US against an order of removal issued by an immigration judge. If the BIA affirms the immigration judge’s order of removal, it becomes administratively final.

However, there are many cases where ERO is unable to get someone deported even with a final order of removal. In certain cases, non-citizens get relief or protection from removal under the Convention Against Torture or by establishing threats of persecution in the home country.