TOI correspondent Washington: Acknowledging the problem of illegal immigration from India to US and accepting New Delhi’s readiness to take back verified violators, PM Modi sought to frame the matter in a larger context, saying both countries need to roll up agents of human trafficking who sold big dreams to aspiring immigrants.
Modi made no mention of the illegals being returned to India shackled and handcuffed on military aircraft — treatment that has caused outrage in India — while suggesting that both countries should end the ecosystem that exploited guileless people being “fooled with big dreams.” Anyone who comes to the US illegally has no right to do so, Modi said, adding that India was ready to take back people verified as Indians.
India is the biggest source of illegal immigration to the US outside of Latin America with more than 725,000 undocumented aliens, according to US officials. Several hundred are currently in the process of being sent back to India, causing consternation among those who are in the legal process of legitimizing their stay, and even among students and professionals transitioning between various legal visa status.
Pushing back against the growing MAGA sentiment against more than a million Indian professionals and students who are mostly on legitimate H1B, L, and F1 visas, Indian officials sought to highlight their economic contribution and the bridges such people to people contacts build between the two countries.
A joint statement from the two sides noted that the more than 300,000 strong Indian student community contributes over $8 billion annually to the U.S. economy and helped create a number of direct and indirect jobs.
The two leaders agreed to strengthen collaboration between higher education institutions of the two countries and India invited the United States to take advantage of the reforms in the Indian education sector to set up offshore campuses of premier educational institutions of the US in India, it added.
The two sides committed to streamline avenues for legal mobility of students and professionals and facilitating short-term tourist and business travel while at the same time committing to aggressively addressing and tackling illegal immigration and human trafficking, foreign secretary Vikram Misri said.
Misri said there an ecosystem that thrives, promotes, and enables the illegal immigration racket and “it is the responsibility of both countries to do something about this.” PM Modi, he added, sought US cooperation in finding out more details about these rackets and “if need be through institutional cooperation between the law enforcement authorities and intelligence organizations of the two countries.”
Interestingly, among the cabinet level officials Trump introduced Modi to in the White House Oval Office before their talks was Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner who wants to drastically curtail all immigration and shut down pathways to US citizenship in line with MAGA sentiment, and Elon Musk, who is weighing in on Trump taking a more relaxed approach to bringing in foreign talent in order to maintain US technological primacy.
