US President-elect Donald Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation in American history once he takes office on January 20, 2025.
In preparation for the event, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has compiled a list of about 1.5 million people to be deported. Among them, nearly 18,000 undocumented Indian nationals have made it to the list prepared by the US government and face imminent deportation back to India.
According to ICE data released in November 2024, 17,940 Indians are among the 1.5 million people on the list of undocumented people with a final order of removal from the US.
According to the Pew Research Center, there are about 725,000 unauthorised immigrants from India living in the US, making it the third largest population of unauthorised immigrants after Mexico and El Salvador.
In October, before the data was made public, the US used a chartered flight to deport Indian nationals in the country illegally.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the flight sent to India on October 22 was in co-operation with the Indian government.
Earlier, Trump said he might deport Chinese nationals of draft age from the US. The US President-elect himself said on NBC that he intends to fulfil his campaign promise of mass deportation of migrants.
The incumbent President Joe Biden after coming to the White House softened the policy on migration, the problem with which in the US persists. A rise in the number of people wanting to enter the country has been repeatedly recorded throughout 2023, with an influx particularly noted at the border with Mexico.
In May of this year, when special deportation rules introduced under Trump because of the COVID-19 pandemic ceased to operate, the Biden administration introduced new requirements, but their effectiveness is questionable.
