Undocumented Indian migrants follow ‘donkey’ route to America: WaPo

With an ever-growing number of Indians taking the “donkey” route to enter the US, Indians have come to make up the third-largest group of undocumented immigrants in the United States, according to a media report.

Citing Pew Research Center’s 2021 estimates, which put the number of such Indians at 725,000, the Washington Post noted India is the only country in the top five outside Latin America.

Since 2011, the number of undocumented Indians in the United States has grown by 70%, the fastest growth of all nationalities, it said. Figures from US Customs and Border Protection show that the number of undocumented Indian immigrants increased the fastest between 2020 and 2023.

‘USA Donkey’: The secret code Indian deportees from Mexico used for their operation (October 19, 2019)

The immigrants are often from middle-class families, the Post said in a report from Jalandhar, India. They frequently sell their land to pay for the journey — which families say can run $40,000 to $100,000 per person.

These migrants are “not the desperately poor” and often come from the most prosperous states in India, Devesh Kapur, a South Asian studies professor at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on the Indian diaspora, was quoted as saying.

RELATED: By the numbers: every eighth person of Indian origin in US is an illegal immigrant (November 25, 2014)

But faced with a shortage of attractive jobs and a struggling agricultural sector, they find that the wealth they have in India is not enough to transform their lives, and this creates “a culture of migration,” he said.

The migrants pass along a chain of countries chosen because of easy visa requirements, the Post said citing interviews with more than a dozen families and their agents in three states in western India.

Undocumented Indians hold $15.5 billion spending power: report (March 11, 2021)

In each place, agents provide the migrants with their next plane ticket as they move closer and closer to Latin America or Canada. From there, depending on how much they pay, they walk or are transported to the US border. If asked questions, they are told to say they don’t feel safe in India.

The trek — along what’s called the “donkey route,” after the Punjabi idiom “dunki,” which refers to hopping — can involve up to a dozen countries and take over a year, the Post reported.

As the American Bazaar reported in October 2019, dotted across Punjab an unbelievable number of sham visa agents and offices operate.

“The danger of the route is not worth it,” L.K. Yadav, a senior police official in Punjab who set up a team to investigate donkey cases, was quoted as saying . The country’s youth, he said, have been “misguided with distorted facts” about the journey.

Guatemalan woman pleads guilty to running scheme to smuggle undocumented Indians into the US through Mexico (November 23, 2015)

A route to the US, through Dubai and Istanbul, is a common one. Other routes go through Hanoi and Cairo. These days, speed is of the essence, said the Post as former president Donald Trump’s harsh rhetoric about immigration and promises to crack down on it have been noticed by some Indians.

“People are now saying to get out quickly, before Trump comes back,” said a Punjabi agent, who works in Jalandhar, a center for the immigration business, was quoted as saying.

He said he started almost two decades ago, working on securing student visas to Britain for Indians who applied to study at fake British colleges.

Then, he worked on securing visas for fake overseas marriages and produced so many, he said, that he invested in wedding outfits. “The visas were churning out as fast as paper in a printer,” he said, snapping his fingers.

He began to send his clients on the donkey route to Turkey through Cyprus and then started sending them to America three years ago.

RELATED: Mexico deports 311 Indians, who were trying to enter US illegally (October 19, 2019)

For $55,000, he said, he now sends migrants by air to Italy and then on to Mexico, and finally by bus to the US border.

The Post cited the story of a 25-year-old woman from Gujarat state whose family had arranged to have her marry a stranger who had taken the donkey route.

To meet him in 2017, she recalled, she trekked with another Gujarati woman for eight hours at night through a freezing Canadian forest, with an agent providing directions over the phone.

Indian American made $500,000 smuggling 800 Indians into US (July 5, 2023)

The woman recounted almost being swallowed by a river, crawling on all fours past police dogs and getting shocked by an electric fence, before reaching Washington state. “At that point, it was better to get caught than die in the cold,” said the woman.

After arriving in Chicago by train, she said, she found her fiancé was having an affair, and while they tried to patch up their relationship, it eventually became abusive and she had to escape.

‘Inhumane’ treatment meted out to immigrant detainees, including 52 Indians, held in Oregon federal prison (June 23, 2018)

She now urges prospective migrants to travel to the United States legally so that they don’t depend on people who manipulate them.

But until US visas are more available, the Punjabi agent was quoted as saying, “the demand-and-supply chain will remain, like a mother and father. Those that want to go will find any way to reach. It doesn’t matter which route you show them.

READ MORE:

171,000 undocumented immigrants from India to benefit from Obama’s executive action (December 3, 2014

Indian family of four found frozen to death near US-Canada border (January 22, 2022)