Sowmya Paul, 44, has been working in Ireland for about two decades, but she is still perceived as an outsider. “I have been shouted at and asked to leave the country,” said the nurse, who hails from Ernakulam, Kerala.

Sowmya was among the 500-odd people, half of them South Asian, who marched through central Dublin on July 26, 2025, calling attention towards the recent spate of attacks against Indians in Ireland. Walking from the city hall to the gate of Leinster House, the seat of Parliament, the protesters carried placards and shouted slogans.

The march took place after an Indian was attacked in the south-western suburb of Tallaght in Dublin on July 19, 2025. The attackers allegedly removed the victim’s pants and underwear and posted a video on social media, accusing him of being a paedophile. A man driving past also took a video of the victim, whose face was covered in blood. In the video, the victim can be seen trying to pull his jacket down to cover himself and the man shouting, “Get the f*** out of this state now”.

Jennifer Murray, 42, a resident of Tallaght, was driving when she found the victim. In a video she later shared on social media, to “debunk the rumours about him,” Jennifer said he kept insisting he was not a paedophile as she covered him with a blanket lying in her car’s boot.

She took him to the Tallaght University Hospital, and then to the house where he was staying with an Indian family. Jennifer learnt that he works at Amazon and had come to Ireland only a week prior. “They have a newborn, and the wife there told me how he was doing all the cooking to allow her to rest after her childbirth. He is truly a kind man,” she said in the video.

“The attackers were teenagers, whose frontal lobes haven’t been developed yet. They have learnt the knife culture, and are influenced by online misinformation,” she told The Hindu.

Jennifer claimed that over the last few weeks, there were four similar attacks in the neighbourhood, but they were not reported by the media.

Her video opened a can of worms. On WhatsApp groups, Indians living in Ireland began to share harrowing stories of racial abuse, largely perpetuated by adolescents and teenagers.

On the margins

Since Brexit, Ireland has become a popular destination for India’s economic migrants. There are currently 80,000 Indians living in Ireland, marking a 300% jump over the last decade. According to 2023 data from the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland, 17% of nurses and midwives registered to work are Indian citizens.

The Irish government has also been wooing Indians to pursue higher education in the green isle. Earlier this year, while James Lawless, the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation, and Science, was visiting Indian cities as part of St Patrick’s Day celebrations, his office issued a statement. It said that over 9,000 Indian students make up 13.1% of Ireland’s international student population.

At the same time, many Irish nationals have moved out of Ireland, seeking better opportunities in the face of the high cost of living and a growing housing crisis. Alongside the influx of Indians and people of other nationalities, and the out-migration of Irish nationals, anti-migrant rhetoric and attacks have increased, especially in marginalised areas such as Tallaght.

Tallaght was once largely rural. It was developed as a town in the 1960s, but without adequate facilities or job prospects. Last year, a survey by a group of principals, describing themselves as the Deis Cluster Advocacy Group, found that nearly half the primary schoolchildren in some of Dublin’s most socio-economically disadvantaged communities, in areas such as West Tallaght, Ballymun, and Darndale, have suffered major personal trauma. This includes homelessness, the loss of a close family member, or witnessing a violent death. This year, a school in Tallaght nearly shut down when funds earmarked for schools in socio-economically disadvantaged communities were cut.

Over time, expanding housing estates in Tallaght have accommodated Indians working in the Information Technology sector. The availability of nursing jobs at the Tallaght University Hospital has led to a surge in the Indian population. Tallaght became home to Ireland’s first Saravana Bhavan outlet in April this year.

It is the open area surrounding Tallaght’s mall where Indians have suffered violence at the hands of teenagers, said Anil Nair (name changed), who lives in the apartment complex where the victim of the July 19 attack was staying.

Anil has been living in Ireland for over a decade. Instead of walking to the grocery store, he now takes his car. “Teenagers hang out there on Friday and Saturday evenings. Indians here have been advising each other to only step out in groups. The miscreants are sometimes as young as 10 years. They are arrogant, because nobody is teaching them to behave differently,” he said.

Pradeep, who has lived in Ireland for eight years, purchased a flat in Tallaght two years ago. His wife Radhika joined him later. In the last three months in particular, the couple has been hearing about violence against Indians in the neighbourhood. “We have met nurses who were attacked with water guns while returning home from work. The boys who attacked them were quite young,” Radhika said. She added that the girls accompanying the boys are often seen making videos of these scenes and laughing.

A string of attacks

Since July 19, there have been many similar attacks in Dublin. Lakhvir Singh, a taxi driver, was attacked by his passengers on a Saturday night with a beer bottle that left his face bleeding. Data scientist Santosh Jadav put up a post on LinkedIn saying he was attacked outside his home and suffered a fractured cheekbone. The Irish media reported that Laxman Das, a sous chef, was attacked one morning by three men who also stole his e-scooter and wallet. The media also reported that in Waterford, three hours south of Dublin, six-year-old Nia Naveen was punched on her face, hit by a bicycle on her private parts, and told to go home by a bunch of older boys, when she was out playing. Except for Santosh, all the victims are reportedly naturalised citizens.

In these cases, while complaints were allegedly filed with Gardaí Síochána (the Irish police), no arrests have been made yet. WhatsApp groups have been abuzz with stories of being told off by the Gardaí when the attackers are teenagers.

Many also complained about how the Indian Embassy in Ireland has largely been non-responsive. It was only on August 1 — two weeks after the violence in Tallaght and after similar incidents — that the Embassy issued a travel advisory saying Indians living in Ireland must “take reasonable precautions for their personal security and avoid deserted areas, especially in odd hours”. The local media too reported on these attacks and mentioned the protest march in Dublin.

That march lasted close to two hours with speeches from local politicians, a few Indians, and trade union leaders. Nine Indians said that this was the first demonstration they had participated in. A few men wore neon vests to indicate that they were volunteers keeping everyone safe.

Nithya Kothenmaril, a PhD researcher, has attended several anti-racism marches in Dublin. She chose to live on her university campus for safety. “But recently, two young boys sprayed me with water. I was shocked,” she said. “But what shocked me more was that a white woman walking near me did not say anything. I was stressed all day that this had happened on campus.”

Most of the Indian diaspora groups gathers together only for cultural events, Nithya rued. “This is unlike the black community that gets together to discuss issues of justice. Given the big number of Indians in Ireland, their participation in the march is rather low,” she said.

Fearmongering

In April 2024, Ireland’s estimated population was 5.38 million, crossing the 5 million-mark for the first time since the 1840s. The Central Statistics Office found that more than 1 lakh people had migrated to Ireland between 2021 and 2024. Now, 15.5% of the country’s population are citizens of other countries.

Attacks on tourists, as well as targeted racist attacks, have risen in recent years. In 2020, George Nkencho, a young black man who had allegedly been suffering from mental health issues and had threatened people with a knife inside a shop, was killed by Gardaí. The incident galvanised the Black Lives Matter movement in Ireland.

“During the pandemic, the far-right grew on the back of the anti-vaccine movement,” explained Ruth Coppinger, the Teachta Dála (Member of Parliament) from Ireland’s Socialist Party. “The shock that came with the pandemic led to an increase in anti-authoritarian sentiment. The Internet has allowed the far-right to portray migrants as criminals and people are believing this.”

In recent times, several politicians have won local elections riding on anti-immigrant rhetoric, by claiming that migrants have been prioritised for social housing and health benefits. Last year, a planned asylum centre was torched thrice in Coolock in north-east Dublin.

It was allegedly online rumours that led to riots in Dublin on November 23, 2023, following the stabbing of children outside a primary school in Parnell Square, a multicultural area. Rumours began to fly online about the identity of the attacker and members of the far-right urged people to take to the streets. The hashtag #IrelandIsFull went viral. That evening, a large crowd gathered in the area, vandalising shops and vehicles, and assaulting Gardaí personnel. Eyewitnesses described the rioters as youth in their early 20s. By July 2024, up to 49 people, including several women, were arrested in connection to the riots. No leader was booked for spreading rumours.

According to Darragh Adelaide, a councillor from the People Before Profit party, the youth wing of the far-right National Party has been specifically targeting young men who feel alienated. Darragh grew up in the working-class area of Clondalkin in the west of Dublin, which is now his political constituency. He has seen the area grow over the years, with people from different countries living there. At the same time, austerity cuts in the past few years have impacted single-parent families and access to education, he said.

“There have been times when buses have refused to ply on the streets in Clondalkin because of anti-social behaviour. The dropout rate is high, and fascist leaders prey on people for petty jobs. The far-right has somehow conveyed the idea of scarcity and the government has been silent on this,” Darragh said. Growing up with a Nigerian father and an Irish mother, he said racism always existed in Ireland, but it was never this violent.

A change in the system

During her speech at the protest on July 26, 2025, Ruth acknowledged the labour shortage, and blamed the government for bending backwards to accommodate people from Ukraine fleeing from the war, even as the number of homeless people in Ireland has been steadily increasing each year.

However, law and order measures alone won’t solve racism, she said. “When people from different countries began to come here 25 years ago and faced racist slurs, Gardaí would dismiss them saying this can happen to anyone. We have a history of denying people’s experience of racism by gaslighting them,” she said.

This year, a study by the Irish Network Against Racism reported how people of African descent and Brazilians experienced discriminatory policing, racial profiling, and a lack of trust in Gardaí. Fear of not being taken seriously, potential repercussions, and previous negative experiences have deterred many from reporting crimes. Darragh said that while the government wants to bestow more power to Gardaí, it is not using the power it already has to combat hate crimes.

On August 22, 2025, while speaking at a graduation ceremony, the Garda Commissioner, Drew Harris, said that the recent attacks on Indians are being driven by racism, criminality, and the targeting of vulnerable people.

Feljin Jose, a councillor for the Green Party, who moved to Ireland from Kochi in Kerala at the age of nine, emphasised the importance of reporting crimes to Gardaí. “Many people are not aware of how the system works and how to respond when a crime takes place. A person must go to the Garda station and insist on filing a statement. However, there is often no evidence. When juveniles are involved, it becomes complicated. There is a lot more leniency towards them.”

He explained how such violence picks up during school vacations and on longer evenings. “The people committing such crimes are almost always from disadvantaged groups. There are very little youth resources and investments being made in something that could be productive for children. Even if there are such investments, change will take time,” he added.

Immigration consultant Senthil Ramasamy, who has been living in Ireland for 25 years, said that he had sent emails about the recent attacks to various Ministers and the Garda commissioner. The Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, responded mentioning the government’s policy on crimes committed by youth. Community-based youth crime prevention initiatives attempt to divert young people at risk of being involved in criminal behaviour. After a few steps of investigation and recommendations, an offender is referred to the Garda Youth Diversion Programme. Repeat offenders are investigated separately, and the Director of Public Prosecutions decides if a person should be charged.

Jim also told the media, “Regrettably, very many of the offences appear to be perpetrated by persons under the age of 18 and that does pose a particular challenge for us within the criminal justice system, to ensure that individuals who are under 18, who commit criminal offences, are brought before our courts, and face sanction.”

Legislating hate speech

There are also no provisions to legislate hate speech, which compounds the problem. In May, the European Commission suggested that Ireland was failing to comply with European Union rules on combating racism and xenophobia.

On August 11, 2025, a delegation from the Federation of Indian Communities in Ireland and Ireland India Council met with Tánaiste (deputy Prime Minister) Simon Harris. They demanded a deeper engagement between Gardaí, local leaders, and youth outreach organisations to address the racially motivated violence, as well as a review of the juvenile justice framework to ensure that serious violent behaviour, including hate-motivated actions, does not go unchecked.

Meanwhile, Jennifer is being felicitated by different groups of the Indian diaspora. “I am just a mam [mother] who helped an injured man who was being attacked by one of our own,” she said. “We don’t want to believe our own people are capable of this. They do not represent the Ireland that I want my children to grow up in.”

Priyanka Borpujari is a freelance journalist based in Dublin

This piece was edited by Radhika Santhanam

If an alien were to gain insights into the immigrant ‘situation’ currently playing out in the US, the Netflix show Mo would act as a good gateway. Except, it might lead the alien to believe that there are no Indian immigrants, legal or illegal, in the US.

Mo, the semi-autobiographical comedy created by Palestinian-American comic Mo Amer, along with Egyptian-American Ramy Youssef, traces the life of Mohammad ‘Mo’ Najjar, whose family arrived in Houston two decades ago as Palestinian asylum seekers from Kuwait. Through two seasons, the series has captured the hopes, dreams, despair, deceit, dehumanisation, discriminatory cultural practices, etc., that define the immigrant experience. Mo’s family is the vehicle through which the heated ongoing debate on immigration in the US is carried to different parts of the world in an airy, easy manner. Quite in contrast with military aircrafts full of deported illegal immigrants.

Where Are The Indians?

Mo grew up in Houston, speaking Arabic, Spanish, and English, and has hustled all his life to take care of his family after his father’s death. His struggles are everyone’s struggles, only exacerbated by the undocumented status of his family. His social circle is full of other immigrants to the US—Africans, Hispanics, Arabs, and everyone else in between. 

But, what about Indians? 

It is interesting that despite living in Houston, a city with the largest South Asian population in the US, Mo has managed to steer clear of them in both seasons. Just like Mo has managed to steer clear of October 7, 2023. According to the 2020 census, Houston is home to about 165,000 Indians, the seventh-largest in the US. 

On Culture And Divide

After Hispanic and Vietnamese immigrants, Indians account for the single largest immigrant community in Houston. So why does Mo never interact with one? He grew up in Alief, a working-class suburb in southwest Houston, which was the most culturally and ethnically diverse school district in the US in 1996. A news report on Alief in 2006 sums it up succinctly in one sentence: “The district’s 47,000 students speak nearly 70 tongues.” Yet, we do not see a single Indian in Mo’s immigrant universe. 

Could it be owing to the cultural insularity that Indian immigrants are (in)famous for? A Carnegie survey from 2021 found, “Indian Americans—especially members of the first generation—tend to socialise with other Indian Americans. Internally, the social networks of Indian Americans are more homogenous in terms of religion than either Indian region (state) of origin or caste”. Another relevant finding is that “divisions in India are being reproduced within the Indian American community”. 

Is it, then, possible that Indian immigrants, primarily Hindus, choose to have minimal consociational engagement with Mo’s community? Maybe, therefore, Indians are not even a footnote in Mo’s story. 

Mo is not entirely blameless, either. Devout Muslims, the Najjars are uncomfortable with the idea of embracing non-Muslims in the family’s fold. Religion dictates their worldview as much as their regional identity as “stateless” Palestinians. Yusra, Mo’s mother, disapproves of his relationship with Mexican Maria, who wears her Catholicism on her sleeve as a tattoo. When Maria starts a rebound relationship with an Israeli-Jewish guy called Guy, she does so knowing that Mo won’t be able to forgive that, thus making it easier for her to move on.

An ‘Elite’ Immigrant

Or, maybe there’s another explanation for the absence of Indian immigrants in this beloved story of the immigrant realities in the US. A 2023 Pew survey shows that the median income of the immigrant Indian households is “greater than the median household income among Asian Americans overall”. So, Mo’s tattoo artist friend, who is also doubling as an emergency surgeon suturing his bullet graze, and his codeine dealer, a fellow hustler, is a man of Southeast Asian/Chinese origin. It is the underbelly of the immigrant American society that makes up Mo’s universe. 

Mo, however, is an ‘elite’ immigrant. He realises this when he spends time first in a cartel’s and later in a “coyote’s” dungeon in Mexico, holding prospective illegals with an American dream. Even though Mo’s family is struggling financially, they didn’t have to undertake a life-threatening journey to the US. However, many of those currently being deported to India had to. After paying a hefty sum—almost as much as the Rolling Stone figure of $10,000 quoted by Nick, Mo’s childhood friend. Yet, upon landing in the US territory, is the shared misery of the mule “dunki” route forgotten in the race to realise the American dream? 

As per the World Bank, India received $125 billion in remittances, a much more significant sum than the $71.92 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2023-24. Undocumented immigrants, living and working under deportation fears, send a bigger chunk of their earnings back home. Maybe this is why Indians do not frequent gaming arcades and clubs that Mo and his friends often haunt. And those who can afford doing so prefer to socialise among their own.

Whatever the reasons are, Indians’ absence from this saga of immigration is conspicuous and demands a think about the home and the world. 

(The author is a Delhi-based author and academic.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

President-elect Donald Trump plans to launch a mass deportation operation targeting millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally and with temporary protections once he takes office on Jan. 20, a challenging initiative that could split apart families and affect U.S. businesses.

There were roughly 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally or with a temporary status at the start of 2022, a figure that some analysts say has increased to 13-14 million. Those with temporary protections are not immediately deportable and many live in “sanctuary” states that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

WHERE DO IMMIGRANTS WITHOUT LEGAL STATUS LIVE?

California was the state with the most immigrants in the U.S. illegally with some 2.2 million in 2022, according to estimates by the Center for Migration Studies of New York, a nonpartisan think tank.

Texas was close behind with 1.8 million, followed by Florida (936,000), New York (672,000). New Jersey (495,000) and Illinois (429,000).

California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois – all Democratic strongholds – are among 11 states with “sanctuary” laws or policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

Some 44% of immigrants in the U.S. illegally lived in sanctuary states in 2022, according to the migration center’s estimate. That figure does not include those in sanctuary cities and counties in places without a state-wide law, such as New Mexico.

Most of the immigrants taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are caught illegally crossing the border or are referred from state and local prisons and jails.

Law enforcement in sanctuary states typically refuse to alert ICE when they detain or release an immigrant eligible for deportation.

WHERE DO IMMIGRANTS WITHOUT LEGAL STATUS COME FROM?

Nearly half of the immigrants in the U.S. illegally in 2022 came from Mexico, amounting to 4.8 million of 11 million overall, according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report.

Other top countries were Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Since January 2022, some 2 million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were either caught crossing illegally or allowed to enter via Biden-era humanitarian programs, according to DHS statistics.

Trump intends to end the Biden entry programs, including one for migrants with U.S. sponsors and another that allows migrants in Mexico to use an app to enter through a legal border crossing.

WHERE DO IMMIGRANTS IN THE U.S. ILLEGALLY WORK?

The vast majority of the immigrants in the U.S. illegally in 2022 were prime working age, according to the DHS report. About 8.7 million of the 11 million were ages 18-54.

Farm groups have urged Trump to spare their workers from his promised mass deportations, arguing their removal would upend the U.S. food supply chain.

Think tanks and the U.S. government have varying estimates for the number of agricultural workers that live in the U.S. illegally. The Center for Migration Studies of New York found the total number to be 283,000 in 2022, with about half in California. U.S. government estimates suggest the nationwide total could be closer to 1 million.

HOW MANY AMERICANS LIVE IN ‘MIXED-STATUS HOUSEHOLDS’?

The immigration advocacy group FWD.us projected that there would be 14.5 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally by January 2025, up from the 11 million in 2022.

Of those, 10.1 million live with a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, what’s known as a “mixed-status household.”

The figure suggests that a large-scale deportation initiative would likely split up families and could affect millions of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

At least 5.1 million U.S. citizen children live with an immigrant parent who lacks legal status, according to a FWD.us analysis of government data.

Those families could face the prospect of relocating to another country together or be separated.

HOW LONG HAVE IMMIGRANTS WHO LACK LEGAL STATUS LIVED IN THE U.S.?

Some 54% of immigrants in the U.S. illegally had lived in the country for more than 10 years as of 2022, according to the report by Center for Migration Studies of New York.

About 25 percent had been in the country for less than five years.

HOW MANY IMMIGRANTS IN THE U.S. NOW LACK LEGAL STATUS?

DHS, the Center for Migration Studies of New York and other think tanks have used U.S. Census data and other figures to estimate that there were about 11 million immigrants in the U.S. in 2022 who either lacked legal immigration status or had temporary humanitarian protections.

DHS enforcement and entry statistics suggest that at least 5 million more immigrants entered the U.S. without legal status or with a temporary humanitarian status since then.

However, some of those immigrants have since been deported, voluntarily left, obtained legal status or died over the same period. An up-to-date estimate that factors in all of these outcomes is not available.

ARE PEOPLE WITH TEMPORARY PROTECTIONS COUNTED IN THESE ESTIMATES?

Yes, the estimates of immigrants in the U.S. illegally typically include people who have temporary humanitarian protections, meaning they would not be immediately deportable.

The protections include 1.1 million people covered by Temporary Protected Status (TPS) as of Sept. 30. TPS grants deportation relief and access to work permits to people already in the U.S. if their home countries are deemed unsafe due to armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary circumstances.

The designations last six- to 18-months but can be renewed indefinitely. Trump sought to end most TPS enrollment during his 2017-2021 presidency but was blocked by federal courts.

He is expected to try to end most TPS enrollment as the protections expire, but the process would face litigation.

Thousands more have a similar status known as Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) that Trump could also try to roll back.

Another 535,000 people have deportation relief and work permits through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for “Dreamer” immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Trump tried to end the DACA program during his first term but was rebuffed by the Supreme Court.

Trump is expected to again try to end DACA although he said in a recent interview that he would be open to a deal to protect “Dreamers.”

The state of Texas is currently leading a lawsuit against the program that could make its way back to the Supreme Court during Trump’s presidency.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Data Point: Germany wants Indian workers, but right-wing AfD resists

| Video Credit:
The Hindu

While countries such as Australia, Canada, and the U.S. are limiting or planning to limit visas for immigrant workers, Germany is planning to increase them. This is good news for Indians, who already make up the largest group of foreign residents in Germany, both as students and workers.

However, the country is also facing snap elections next year. Germany’s far-right anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany — AfD — is on the rise. In September this year, they secured a big win in the Eastern German State of Thuringia. They are also the second-most popular party, according to the Politico’s ‘Poll of Polls’.

What does this mean for Indian migrants in Germany? How will this clash of needs and politics unfold? In this video, we explore these questions.

Read more: Germany opens doors to skilled Indians amid global visa cuts

Presentation and script: Vignesh Radhakrishnan

Data Support and editing: Sambavi Parthasarathy

Videography: Shivaraj.S

Washington:

Nine immigrants from various countries, including Lebanon, Germany, Taiwan, and Mexico, took the oath to become American citizens in a scenic outdoor naturalisation ceremony overlooking Los Angeles, with the iconic Hollywood sign as their backdrop.

As the US presidential election draws near, many of these new citizens are eager to exercise their right to vote, with some already knowing who they’ll support.

Chia Hsin Tsai, a 33-year-old marketing manager from Taiwan, is one of them. She’s lived in the US for 11 years and applied for citizenship in March. “Becoming a part of the country that I’m living in makes me feel special,” she said, though she didn’t disclose who she’ll vote for.

Floriane Turcat, a 37-year-old French actress, was inspired by American movies and TV shows. She’s now registered to vote in California and plans to support Vice President Kamala Harris, citing concerns for women’s rights and reproductive rights. She said, “I want to be part of the political movement of this country,” and added, “Even though California is a Democratic state, I want to be able to participate and have a voice and state that it’s important for me. I want to stand for my rights.”

Phoenix De Los Angeles Lopez Daal, a 31-year-old set dresser from Venezuela, hopes to vote for former President Donald Trump. He is of the opinion that there should be freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right to own and carry arms.

Dennis Beier, a 46-year-old German film producer, wants to vote for Harris to protect democracy, especially after the January 6 US Capitol attack. Beier has always seen the US as a land of freedom and opportunity. “I just want to keep like this whole democracy thing intact,” Beier stated. “And people need to respect when they lose, that’s part of it, and if you can’t, then you should not be in politics.”

The US presidential election is heating up, with just days to go until November 5th. Harris and Trump are neck and neck in a fiercely contested battle for the White House. These individuals, along with tens of millions of other Americans, will shape the country’s future with their votes.

For the 725,000 Indian immigrants living in the U.S. without a visa, the third-largest group of undocumented immigrants, President Joe Biden’s recent executive order on immigration brings much-needed relief. It eases the path to employment and citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, or ‘dreamers’, that is, undocumented residents who were brought to the US as children. Around 2,000 of such “dreamers” in the US are Indian, and they are now eligible to apply for employment-based visas, like the H1-B. The executive order also lifted some application requirements for undocumented spouses of US citizens. However, for the nearly 1.6 million Indian citizens residing legally in the U.S., neither Biden nor Trump have delivered meaningful reforms, though both presidential candidates have indicated support for high-skilled, employment-based immigration from India.

Dip Patel is a “documented dreamer.” Brought to the US as a child by Indian parents on H1-B visas, he faced self-deportation (voluntary departure from the country in advance of legal proceedings) at the age of 21 if he did not qualify for an employment visa. “When I was in high school, I realised that every decision and choice that I was making would impact my ability to remain in the country,” he said. “Later, I would learn that this is something that’s affecting not just me but thousands of people like me.” 

Narrow Avenues

Patel founded Improve the Dream, a youth-led grassroots organisation, to advocate for around 2 lakh “documented dreamers” in the US, most of whom are Indian-American. These are immigrants like Patel who face self-deportation because their parents did not receive a green card – for which the wait could be 134 years – before they turned 21. The H1-B lottery, the primary pathway to remaining in the states for ‘documented dreamers’, had an approval rate of 14.6% in FY2024.

“With the current lottery system, the chance of visa approval is very low, and that’s going to go down even more, since there’s going to be many more DACA recipients applying,” says Patel. “And that’s absolutely not to say that they don’t deserve that opportunity – rather that the administration must prioritise [systemic reform].” Indians were granted 74.1% of H1-B visas in 2021, which remains the primary mode of immigration from India to the US.

“Nothing good has happened in 34 years,” says Charles Foster, senior immigration advisor to George Bush and Barack Obama, and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (famously portrayed in Mao’s Last Dancer). “I’ve known Biden since I supported his first presidential campaign in 1988, and his heart is in the right position. [But] Congress has not enacted major legislation on immigration since 1990.”

Immigration Still A Sticky Issue

Congresswoman Deborah Ross, member of the House India Caucus and immigration subcommittee of the Judiciary committee, is one of the staunchest advocates in the Congress immigration reform. “The good news is that we now have bipartisan, bicameral legislation to include ‘documented dreamers’ with the original dreamers…that passed the House twice. But we are not moving on immigration issues because of the political fights and the fights over the border,” she said. Patel added that “any sort of immigration bill is very, very hard right now [due to Republican opposition]”.

The pressing issue is the annual cap of H1-B issuances to 65,000 a year, and country quotas on green cards of 7%, which means that no single country can receive more than 7% of the annual employment-based green card allotment. For the 1.1 million Indians stuck in the green card backlog, this could mean a lifetime of waiting; for the thousands of Indian applicants in the H1-B lottery, it could mean deportation.

“The problem is that the right wing of the Republican Party is not willing to admit that we need more workers and more skilled workers in this country,” says Rep. Ross. “I absolutely believe voters that care about positive immigration reform are being completely overlooked. I have a growing Asian-American and Latino community in my district. Every time I talk to the Chamber of Commerce, I hear about this issue. It’s the number one issue for the hospitality and restaurant industry.”

‘I Need Staff’

Kiran Verma, one of the most celebrated Indian chefs in America, who was invited to the White House by the Obamas, says: “I have been running Kiran’s in Houston for over two decades and never has the situation been so dire with a dearth of trained manpower. I need chefs, I need wait staff, I need managers. It used to be so much easier to get them from India. Now, even the best talent can’t come because the process is so cumbersome.”

Trump, however, is even less likely than Biden to be an ally for Indian immigrants, even if they are college-educated. “He said things like this even before his last term, but his actual record shows that he made it worse for legal immigrants,” said Patel. “He walked back his claims about green cards the very next day.” Project 2025, the recently released policy playbook for a second Trump presidency, proposes to use backlog numbers to trigger the automatic suspension of application intake for large categories, among other restrictions on immigration.

The question remains whether positive immigration reform will be a decisive factor in the election, particularly at a time when support for Biden among Indian-American voters has declined by 19% since the debate. Even for Indian-Americans who support Trump, immigration remains an important issue. Jugal Malani, CEO of Unique Group Industries and president of India House Houston (and organiser of Howdy Modi in 2019), says that while he does still support Trump in 2024, “I absolutely support immigration reform: this country runs on immigrants.”

The Risk Of Losing Talent

Rep. Ross said, “I was in India less than a year ago. And what I heard was that the younger people in India, many of whom have come to my district for advanced degrees and to do amazing work, now don’t think it’s worth it. And so they’re staying in India, and India, frankly, likes that.” Indeed, there was a 38% drop in overall H1-B applications for FY2025. “We’re going to lose talent – and when we lose talent, we lose our competitiveness,” she said.

Verma agrees. “My journey would not have been fulfilled had the immigration laws been the same as today. The promise of the American dream must go on. I hope we can fix the issue with whoever comes to power this November in the White House,” he says.

(Maya Prakash is a New York Times award-winning writer, and a student at Williams College, Massachusetts and Oxford University.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

File picture of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar
| Photo Credit: PTI

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar rejected U.S. President Joe Biden’s comment that “xenophobia” was hobbling the South Asian nation’s economic growth, reported on Saturday.

Mr. Jaishankar said at a round table hosted by The Economic Times on Friday that India’s economy “is not faltering” and that it has historically been a society that is very open.

“That’s why we have the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), which is to open up doors for people who are in trouble… I think we should be open to people who have the need to come to India, who have a claim to come to India,” Mr. Jaishankar said, referring to a recent law that allows immigrants who have fled persecution from neighbouring countries to become citizens.

Earlier this week, Mr. Biden had said “xenophobia” in China, Japan and India was holding back growth in the respective economies as he argued migration has been good for the U.S. economy.

“One of the reasons why our economy’s growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Mr. Biden said at a fundraising event for his 2024 re-election campaign and marking the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast last month that growth in Asia’s three largest economies would slow in 2024 from the previous year.

The IMF also forecast that the U.S. economy would grow 2.7%, slightly brisker than its 2.5% rate last year. Many economists attribute the upbeat forecasts partly to migrants expanding the country’s labour force.

US President Joe Biden recently came under fire for calling India, Japan, Russia, and China “xenophobic” nations while talking about the US’ reputation for welcoming immigrants. Now that has led many to ask what exactly “xenophobia” means.

What is xenophobia?

Xenophobia means to have a fear of or hate people from other cultures or countries. It often stems from not understanding or being unfamiliar with those who are “different”. This fear can lead to discrimination or even hostility towards those perceived as “outsiders”. Xenophobia may cause divisions and prevent people from getting along. 

What did Joe Biden say?

Speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser, the President said that a major reason the US economy was growing was “because we welcome immigrants.” The 81-year-old Democratic contender further stated that China, Japan, Russia, and India were not faring well economically “because they are xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.”

Mr Biden claimed that “immigrants are what makes us strong,” adding, “We have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute.”

White House Defends His Remark

The White House has defended President Joe Biden’s remarks, clarifying that he was “making a broad point” about the importance of immigrants in strengthening a country. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that India and Japan have strong relations with the US and said, “Our allies and partners know very well how much the President respects them. If you just look at the last three years, (the President) has certainly focused on those diplomatic relationships.”

She added that the President is always going to be really clear on speaking to issues that matter to the American people, further claiming “We are a country of immigrants. That matters. And we’ve seen these attacks. And so, the President is never going to shy away from that.” 

Joe Biden hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a state visit last year, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited the White House in April.