\n<\/p>\n
The family arrived at the ornately carved temple in western India bearing a special sweet of dried milk and clarified butter. It was a desperate offering for their son\u2019s safety: He had just crossed into the United States, only days before President Trump took office promising a fierce crackdown on illegal immigration.<\/p>\n
In their village in Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the markers of migration are everywhere. Plaques on buildings trumpet donations from Indians in America. Houses sit locked and empty, their owners now in the United States \u2014 many legally, many not.<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump\u2019s threats of mass deportations of illegal immigrants have raised the loudest alarms in countries closer to the United States, like in Mexico and Central America. But the fear and uncertainty \u2014 and the potential for political repercussions \u2014 are also rippling through India.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
India is one of the top sources of illegal immigration to the United States, according to the Pew Research Center<\/a>. As of 2022, more than 700,000 undocumented Indians were living in the United States, the center estimates, making them the third-largest group, behind Mexicans and Hondurans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some Indians arrive legally and overstay their visas. Others cross the borders without authorization: In 2023 alone, about 90,000 Indians were arrested as they tried to enter the United States illegally, according to U.S. government data.<\/p>\n India\u2019s government, which has expanded defense, technology and trade ties with the United States, has expressed confidence that it is better positioned than most to weather the global reckoning with another \u201cAmerica First\u201d administration. Mr. Modi has a bond with Mr. Trump, calling him \u201cmy dear friend\u201d as he congratulated him on taking office for a second time.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, there are signs that India is trying to keep Mr. Trump on its good side by cooperating with his clampdown on illegal migration.<\/p>\n Indian news outlets reported this past week that the government had been working with the new administration to take back 18,000 Indian illegal immigrants who are under so-called final removal orders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n According to those reports, India\u2019s goal is to protect its legal pathways for immigration to the United States, like skilled-worker visas, and avoid the punitive tariffs Mr. Trump has threatened to impose over illegal migration. Helping his administration could also spare India the embarrassment of being caught up in the publicity of Mr. Trump\u2019s crackdown.<\/p>\n Indian officials would not confirm the specifics of the news reports to The New York Times. But they noted that deportations from the United States to India were not new \u2014 more than 1,000 Indians were sent back last year \u2014 and said that they were working with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n \u201cOur position is that we are against illegal migration,\u201d said Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesman for India\u2019s Foreign Ministry. \u201cWe have been engaging with U.S. authorities on curbing illegal immigration, with the view of creating more avenues for legal migration from India to the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n Those legal routes \u2014 namely, H-1B visas for skilled workers and visas for students \u2014 have been a subject of heated debate among Mr. Trump\u2019s supporters. Elon Musk and other tech moguls say the H-1B visas are needed to recruit the best talent to the United States. More nationalist voices say the jobs filled by those visa holders should go to Americans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The State Department said the Trump administration was working with India to \u201caddress concerns related to irregular migration.\u201d The new secretary of state, Marco Rubio, held his first bilateral meeting on Tuesday with India\u2019s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar \u2014 an indication of the growing importance of the U.S.-India relationship.<\/p>\n The intensified focus on migration is politically sensitive in India.<\/p>\n Mr. Modi, the country\u2019s most powerful leader in decades, has cast himself as a driving force behind economic growth that he says will eventually make India a developed nation. But his own home state, Gujarat, once hailed as an economic miracle under his leadership, is one of India\u2019s<\/a> largest sources of illegal migration<\/a> to the United States, according to police officials.<\/p>\n Though Washington is looking to India as an alternative to China in global industrial dominance, its uneven economy \u2014 by some measures, one of the most unequal in the world \u2014 still impels large numbers of Indians to take enormous risks to make it to the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the Mehsana district of Gujarat, almost every family has a member in the United States, legally or illegally. Some return only for annual visits to see aunts and uncles. Mehsana is frequently in the news, with reports of its migrants dying while trying to climb a border wall into the United States, reach its shores by boat or make their way over the frozen northern border during winter.<\/p>\n Migration to the United States has traditionally been a status symbol among Gujaratis. Families who have no members in the United States have trouble matching their children in marriages, said Jagdish, 55, a worker at the local college in the village of Jasalpur whose son and daughter-in-law are in the United States illegally.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Jagdish, who asked that his last name not be used, said his son had spent five months in Mexico waiting to cross the border five years ago. Upon entering the United States, he was jailed for three months before being released. He now works at a cafe there, and his wife joined him last year.<\/p>\n It cost the family more than $70,000 to get them to the United States \u2014 a mix of \u201chard-earned money, my life\u2019s savings\u201d and loans, Jagdish said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI don\u2019t buy new clothes, I have cut down on fruits and milk,\u201d he said. \u201cI need to repay the loans.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 on their once-a-year visit. The husband, Rajanikant Patel, tried to offer some reassurance about Mr. Trump, couched in the \u201cno one knows\u201d air that characterizes much talk about the new administration.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump will do what he has to do,\u201d Mr. Patel said. \u201cBut Trump needs people to work there. We are laborers there. It\u2019s such a huge country. Who will work and manage there?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Indians began moving to the United States in large numbers in the 1960s, when India was among the world\u2019s poorest nations and American immigration policy was easing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The pull is strong even today, with India now the world\u2019s fifth-largest economy. Given its immense inequality, economic growth has not necessarily translated into better services or higher standards of living for most.<\/p>\n \u201cThe quality of life here and there cannot be compared,\u201d said Mr. Patel\u2019s wife, Nila Ben.<\/p>\n Immigration consultants said they had seen a decline in visitors as word spread that it was becoming harder to enter the United States, a tightening that began during the Biden administration and that Mr. Trump is moving to drastically increase.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Varun Sharma, the director of an immigration consultancy, said about half of his potential clients inquired about illegal routes into the United States. He politely turns them down, he said.<\/p>\n Many undocumented immigrants now come from the new middle class. In some cases, Indians who arrive on student visas stay past the expiration date. In other cases, migrants first fly to a third country on a visitor\u2019s visa, then slowly make their way to the United States by land or sea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Vishnu Bhai Patel, a lemon trader from a nearby village, said he hoped that Mr. Trump \u201cshows some leniency for divided families like mine \u2014 half of the family is here and half there.\u201d He said he hoped that his daughter, who is studying engineering in the United States, could stay on after graduating and then invite him to come legally, too.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dream is for her to never come back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mujib Mashal contributed reporting from New Delhi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n