Recently illegal immigrants from India have been flooding the borders. Ever since certain south American countries have relaxed their border laws, thousands have used this pipeline to sneak through the U.S. southern borders. In the past 3 years 2600 Indians have been captured crossing the border, up from just the typical couple hundred. They are the 4th largest immigration group in the U.S. Human smugglers are also helping the process because they can typically get more money from the Indians. Even though India is economically secure, it is culturally significant for an Indian to travel abroad. Especially in certain locales, it is almost tradition in certain areas for Indians to immigrate abroad. By moving to the Western states, they are elevating their status. When they are caught, many claim asylum do to religious persecution of the sikh religion in India, but asylum isn't usually granted because that hasn't been an issue since the 1980's, and in fact the president is a sikh.
This article was kind of surprising to me at first because it seems strange that Indians would want to immigrate away from even financially secure homes, but it turns out it is a regional tradition. It makes me wonder whether as India's global status continues to increase whether this kind of cultural thought process will disappear. When they come here, the immigrants generally take on jobs like taxi driving and farm labor, often making less than what they did at home, but they gain the status of living in the west, and eventually the start making more. I guess I never thought of that as a push for people to immigrate, but I imagine that in some ways it is similar to how American college students are encouraged to study abroad, or how many nationalities come here on foreign exchange programs. For now it seems hard to determine whether this is an increasing trend, or just a spike do to the relaxing of certain south American laws, but hopefully, for their sake, the Indians can learn that their own country is doing quite well enough.
"More Illegal Immigrants from India crossing border." USA Today. <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-07-17-illegal-immigration-indians_n.htm?csp=34news>
That is really interesting, I never knew Indian's were the 4th largest migration group in the U.S. I understand why they would want to leave their country though, it seems like that region has been becoming pretty dangerous over the years.
ReplyDeletewow what an eye opener, It is understandable why they would leave tho. The economic opportunities in the US are much greater then in India
ReplyDeleteInteresting, a very weird thought that people leave there to find work in the US while many companies outsource work to India. Circle of (business) life eh?
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting, but logical. The pay-rate there is probably quite a bit lower than here in the United States, and I'm willing to bet their regulations may be more stringent.
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