Ahead of President Barack Obama’s expected executive action on immigration reform, a new report has estimated the number of illegal Indian immigrants in the United States at 450,000 — as against some earlier estimates of around 250,000.
The new report, produced by Pew Research Centre, puts Indians at No. 4 on the list of unauthorised immigrant population, after Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala. Mexico, the southern neighbour, tops the table in a big way, accounting for a whopping 5.85 million (52 per cent) of the US’s overall illegal immigrant population of 11.2 million.
The scope of Obama’s executive action is still unclear, but he is widely expected to offer relief from deportation for millions of illegal immigrants, predominantly parents of children born in US. This category itself is said to add up to as many as four million people. It is unknown how many of them are Indians.
The overall illegal immigrant population, says the Pew report, has levelled off in the US in the wake of the Great Recession following the financial meltdown of 2007-08. Between 2009 and 2012, the population of illegal immigrants fell in 14 States, but rose in seven States, including Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The number of illegal immigrants from Mexico has been falling through the recession. After peaking to 6.9 million, the Mexican number declined to 6.4 million in 2009 and 5.9 million in 2012. But the influx from other regions has continued. Illegal immigrants from Asian countries now account for 12 per cent, and those from Central American nations add up to 15 per cent. China is No. 6 on the table, accounting for 300,000 illegal immigrants.
More than half of the unauthorized immigrant population (60 per cent) live in six States -- California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas. In contrast, the smaller States of Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia had fewer than 5,000 unauthorized immigrants each in 2012.
Virginia and Maryland, adjoining the national capital, have experienced the largest increases in the number of illegal immigrants since 2009. The two States, between them, have about 525,000 illegal immigrants.