The Migrant Card

CHENNAI: This week, the American President-elect Donald Trump announced that Mexico has agreed to immediately put an end to illegal immigrants from making a beeline to its border with the United States. The declaration comes days after Trump threatened Mexico and Canada with an imposition of a 25 per cent tariff on all imports from these countries, on account of their failure to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States. On his social media platform, Trump posted that he would slap China with a 10% tariff above any additional tariffs. Collectively, the three countries purchased over $1 trillion of US exports and provided $1.5 trillion worth goods and services to the US in 2023.

It might be recalled that Trump had previously attacked President Biden over the illegal immigration issue, claiming that 21 million people sneaked in over the past three years of the Democratic regime. Data from the US Department of Homeland Security shows an uptick in the quantum of illegal immigrants in the US since 2020. However, it’s nowhere close to the figures that Trump has projected.

As per the US based think tank Pew Research Centre, in absolute numbers, the lawful immigrant count grew from 24.1 mn in 2000 to 36.9 mn in 2022. When taken in context of the foreign born population in the US in 2022, about 11 mn people or 23% make up illegal immigrants, which is one in every four expats. The report went on to add that the illegal immigration population had likely grown over the past two years. One of the factors cited was the record level of encounters with migrants at US borders in 2022-23. It is worth noting that the US Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests at the Mexican border in October alone — and 23,721 arrests at the Canadian one between October 2023 and September 2024.

Next door neighbour Mexico is the source of the largest group of illegal immigrants in the US, while Central and South American nations dominate the top 10 countries of origin although there is a significant quantum of stowaways from India as well. Interestingly, conspicuous by its absence in Trump’s recent reference was any other nation, including India, from where a rising number of illegal immigrants are tiptoeing into the US in recent months, having traversed across the Mexican and Canadian borders after entering the continent through third countries.

Between October 2023 and September 2024, more than 90,000 Indians were caught while trying to sneak into the US across its land borders,with either Mexico or Canada. The number of Indians caught by US border patrol went up threefold between 2021 and 2024 — from 30,662 to 90,415. Often referred to as the donkey route, it involves moving through multiple nations with the aim of illegally crossing over into the target nation. This modus operandi has now become popular with many illegal immigrants from India.

As a corollary to the influx of immigrants into America, what was also witnessed was a trend, involving the exit of Americans from the land of opportunity. Google searches for move to Canada surged 1,270% after the US east coast polls closed. Similar searches about moving to New Zealand spiked nearly 2,000% while those for Australia jumped 820%. The narratives are all driven by fear mongering, and needless to say it’s only going to exacerbate the ideology that pits people into an us versus them scenario.