The family arrived at an ornately carved temple in western India with a special sweet made from powdered milk and clarified butter. It was a desperate bid for their son’s safety: He had just crossed into the United States, just days before President Trump took office, vowing to crack down on illegal immigration.
In their village in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state, signs of migration are everywhere. Plaques on buildings trumpet donations from Native Americans. The houses are locked and empty, their owners now in the United States — many legally, many not.
Trump’s threats of mass deportations of illegal immigrants have raised the loudest alarm in countries closer to the United States, such as Mexico and Central America. But fear and uncertainty — and the potential for political fallout — are also spreading through India.
India is one of the main sources of illegal immigration to the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. As of 2022, there were more than 700,000 undocumented Indians living in the United States, the center estimated, making them the third largest group behind Mexicans and Salvadorans.
Some Indians arrive legally and overstay their visas. Others cross the border without permission: In 2023 alone, about 90,000 Indians were arrested trying to enter the United States illegally, according to US government data.
India’s government, which has expanded defense, technology and trade ties with the United States, has expressed its belief that it is better positioned than most to handle a global showdown with the next “America First” administration. Mr Modi has a bond with Mr Trump, calling him “my dear friend” as he congratulated him on his second term in office.
However, there are signs that India is trying to keep Mr. Trump on good side by cooperating with his crackdown on illegal migration.
Indian news outlets reported last week that the government was working with the new administration to take back 18,000 Indian illegal immigrants who are subject to so-called final deportation orders.
According to the reports, India aims to protect its legal avenues for immigration to the United States, such as visas for skilled workers, and avoid punitive tariffs that Trump has threatened to impose on illegal migration. Helping his administration could also save India the embarrassment of being caught up in the publicity of Mr. Trump’s intervention.
Indian officials did not confirm details of the reports to The New York Times. But they noted that deportations from the United States to India were not new — more than 1,000 Indians were sent back last year — and said they were cooperating with the Trump administration.
“Our position is that we are against illegal migration,” said Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for India’s foreign ministry. “We have been negotiating with US authorities to curb illegal immigration to create more avenues for legal migration from India to the US”
Those legal pathways — specifically H-1B visas for skilled workers and visas for students — have been the subject of heated debate among Mr. Trump’s supporters. Elon Musk and other tech moguls say H-1B visas are needed to recruit top talent to the United States. More nationalist voices say the jobs filled by these visa holders should go to Americans.
The State Department said the Trump administration was working with India to “address concerns related to illegal migration.” New Secretary of State Marco Rubio held his first bilateral meeting with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar on Tuesday — a sign of the growing importance of the US-India relationship.
The intense focus on migration is politically sensitive in India.
Mr. Modi, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, has become a driving force behind the economic growth that he says will eventually make India a developed country. But his own home state of Gujarat, once hailed as an economic miracle under his leadership, did one from India the biggest resources illegal migration to the United States, according to police officials.
Although Washington views India as an alternative to China in global industrial dominance, its uneven economy — by some measures one of the most unequal in the world — still forces large numbers of Indians to take enormous risks to reach the United States. .
In Gujarat’s Mehsana district, almost every family has a member in the United States, legally or illegally. Some return only for annual visits to aunts and uncles. Mehsana is often in the news, with reports of its migrants dying as they try to scale the border wall into the United States, reach its shores by boat, or cross the frozen northern border during the winter.
Migration to the United States has traditionally been a status symbol among Gujaratis. Families with no members in the United States have problems with their children’s marriages, said Jagdish, 55, a local college worker in the village of Jasalpur whose son and daughter-in-law are in the United States illegally.
Jagdish, who asked that his last name not be used, said his son spent five months in Mexico waiting to cross the border five years ago. After entering the United States, he was imprisoned for three months before being released. He now works in a cafe there, and his wife joined him last year.
It cost the family more than $70,000 to get them to the United States — a mix of “hard-earned money, my life savings” and loans, Jagdish said.
“I’m not buying new clothes, I’ve cut down on fruit and milk,” he said. “I have to pay off the loans.”
In front of the village temple, a married couple who run a Subway franchise in the United States, where they lived for two decades, used to visit once a year. Husband Rajanikant Patel tried to offer some reassurance about Mr Trump, couched in the “nobody knows” air that characterizes much of the talk about the new administration.
“Trump will do what he has to do,” Mr. Patel said. “But Trump needs people to work there.” We are workers there. It’s such a huge country. Who will work and drive there?”
Indians began immigrating to the United States in large numbers in the 1960s, when India was among the poorest countries in the world and American immigration policies were being relaxed.
The pull is strong even today, with India now the world’s fifth largest economy. Because of its immense inequality, economic growth has not necessarily translated into better services or higher living standards for the majority.
“The quality of life here and there is incomparable,” said Mr. Patel’s wife, Nila Ben.
Immigration advisers said they saw a drop in visitors as word spread that it was getting harder to enter the United States, that the crackdown began during the Biden administration and that Mr. Trump was about to drastically increase.
Varun Sharma, director of an immigration consultancy, said about half of his potential clients were asking about illegal entry into the United States. He would politely decline them, he said.
Many undocumented immigrants now come from the new middle class. In some cases, Indians who come on student visas stay beyond the expiry date. In other cases, migrants first fly to a third country on a visitor visa, then slowly make their way to the United States by land or sea.
Vishnu Bhai Patel, a lemon trader from a nearby village, said he hoped Mr Trump would “show some leniency towards divided families like mine – half the family is here and half is there”. He said he hoped his daughter, who is studying engineering in the United States, could stay after graduation and then invite him to come legally as well.
“My dream is that she never comes back,” he said.
Mujib Mashal contributed reporting from New Delhi.
