The family arrived at an ornate temple in western India, carrying special sweets of dried milk and clarified butter. It was a desperate bid for their son’s safety: He had just crossed into the United States, just days before President Trump took office promising to crack down on illegal immigration.
In his village in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, markers of migration are everywhere. Plaques on buildings trumpet the donations of Indians in America. The houses sit locked and empty, their owners now in the United States – many legally, many not.
Mr. Trump’s threats of mass deportations of illegal immigrants have raised the loudest alarms in countries closer to the United States, such as Mexico and Central America. But fear and uncertainty – and the potential for political fallout – are also rippling through India.
India is one of the top sources of illegal immigration to the United States, According to the Pew Research Center. As of 2022, there were more than 700,000 undocumented Native Americans living in the United States, an estimate that made them the third largest group, behind Mexicans and Hondurans.
Some Indians arrive legally and overstay their visas. Others cross borders without authorization: In 2023 alone, about 90,000 Native Americans were arrested while trying to enter the United States illegally, according to US government data.
India’s government, which has expanded defense, technology and trade ties with the United States, has expressed its belief that it is better positioned than most to be globally engaged with another “America First” administration. Mr Modi has a rapport with Mr Trump, calling him “my dear friend” as he congratulated him on his second term in office.
Still, there are signs that India is trying to keep Mr. Trump on its good side by cooperating with its standoff over illegal migration.
Indian news reported last week that the government was working with the new administration to return 18,000 Indian illegal immigrants who are under so-called final orders of removal.
According to those reports, India’s goal is to protect its legal immigration pathways to the United States, such as skilled worker visas, and avoid punitive tariffs that Mr. Trump has threatened to impose on illegal migration. Helping his administration could also spare India the embarrassment of being caught up in the publicity of Mr Trump’s breach.
Indian officials would not confirm the specifics of the New York Times report. But they noted that deportations from the United States to India are not new — more than 1,000 Indians were sent last year — and said they are working with the Trump administration.
“Our position is that we are against illegal migration,” said Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India’s foreign ministry. “We have been working with US authorities to crack down on illegal immigration, with the goal of creating more avenues for legal migration from India to the US.”
Those legal routes—namely, H-1B visas for skilled workers and visas for students—have been the subject of heated debate among Mr. Trump’s supporters. Elon Musk and other tech moguls say H-1B visas are needed to recruit top talent to the United States. More nationalist voices say the jobs filled by those visa holders should go to Americans.
The State Department said the Trump administration was working with India to “address issues related to irregular migration.” New Secretary of State Marco Rubio held his first bilateral meeting Tuesday with India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar—an indication of the growing importance of the U.S.-India relationship.
In India, the intensified focus on migration is politically sensitive.
Mr Modi, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, has cast himself as a driving force behind the economic growth he says will eventually make India a developed nation. But his home state, Gujarat, was once hailed as an economic miracle under his leadership One of India the biggest sources of illegal migration according to the United States, according to police officials.
Although Washington views India as an alternative to China in global industrial dominance, its uneven economy – by some measures, one of the most equal in the world – still influences a large number of Indians to take huge risks to take it to the United States.
In Gujarat’s Mehsana district, almost every family has a member in the United States, legally or illegally. Some return only for annual visits to see their aunts and uncles. Mehsana is often in the news, with reports of migrants dying trying to scale the border wall into the United States, reach their shores by boat or cross the frozen northern border during the winter.
Migration to the United States has traditionally been a status symbol among Gujaratis. Families without members in the United States have trouble matching their children’s marriages, said Jagdish, 55, a local college worker in the village of Jasalpur whose son and daughter-in-law are in the United States illegally.
Jagdish, who asked that his last name not be used, said his son spent five months in Mexico waiting to cross the border five years ago. After entering the United States, he was imprisoned for three months before being released. He now works in a cafe there, and his wife joined him last year.
It cost the family more than $70,000 to get them to the United States—a mix of “hard-earned money, my life’s savings,” Jagdish said.
“I’m not buying new clothes, I’ve cut down on fruit and milk,” he said. “I have to pay off the loans.”
Outside the village temple, a husband and wife who run a Subway franchise in the United States, where they have lived for two decades, were making their annual visit. The husband, Rajanikant Patel, tried to offer some reassurance about Mr. Trump, thrown into the air of “No one knows” that characterizes much talk of the new administration.
“Trump is going to do what he has to do,” Mr. Patel said. “But Trump needs people to work there. We are the workers there. It’s such a huge country. Who will work there and manage it?”
Indians began moving to the United States in large numbers in the 1960s, when India was among the poorest nations in the world and the US immigration policy was easing.
The pull is strong and today, with India, it is now the fifth largest economy in the world. Given its vast inequality, economic growth has not necessarily translated into better services or higher living standards for the majority.
“The quality of life here and there is unmatched,” said Mr. Patel’s wife, Nila Ben.
Immigration advisers said visitors saw the drop as word spread that it was getting harder to enter the United States, a crackdown that began during the Biden administration and that Mr. Trump is moving to drastically increase.
Varun Sharma, director of immigration consulting, said half of his potential clients have inquired about illegal routes into the United States. He politely rejects them, he said.
Many undocumented immigrants now come from the new middle class. In some cases, Indians arriving on student visas overstay. In other cases, migrants first fly to a third country on a visitor visa and then slowly transit to the United States by land or sea.
Vishnu Bhai Patel, a lemon seller from a nearby village, said he hoped Mr Trump “shows some leniency for divided families like mine – half the family is here and half there.” He said he hopes his daughter, who is studying engineering in the United States, can stay after she graduates and then invite him to come legally as well.
“My dream is that it never comes back,” he said.
Muzib masala Contributing to reporting from New Delhi.
