India’s economic migrants and their invisible enablers

A distinguishing feature of this recent phase has been the remarkable role of student mobility, which represents perhaps the best migration pathway, an exemplar of mobility in a globalising world.

India occupying a small but significant part of the global mind space is of rather recent origin, led by its Information Technology revolution in only the last two decades. Colonial emigration took Indian workers to distant lands to keep the wheels of the Empire turning and gave rise to a vast overseas Indian community. Yet, it was the new economy that took India to the world. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the character of Indian migration changed, showing greater confidence, and rapidly moving up the value chain. Indian migration to the United States, Canada, Australia, and to a lesser extent to the United Kingdom, was dominated by students, academics, scientists, doctors, and engineers, many of whom showed considerable entrepreneurial ability. A distinguishing feature of this recent phase has been the remarkable role of student mobility with the best and the brightest Indian students having a strong presence in the western countries, not least the US. Student mobility represents perhaps the best migration pathway, an exemplar of mobility in a globalising world.

Despite this remarkable legal migration past, with planeloads of undocumented Indians deported by the Trump administration in recent weeks, illegal migration has in almost solitary splendour gained visibility, captured the public imagination, and received policy attention. Prime Minister Modi said India would take back its nationals who were in the US illegally and also crack down on the ‘human trafficking ecosystem’. Lest the world thinks otherwise, it should be recognised that India has amongst the lowest number of undocumented migrants across the world. The official data from the Department of Homeland Security reported about 220,000 unauthorised Indians in 2022. Even this number must be seen with circumspection because it is at best an estimate. It is difficult to arrive at an exact number because undocumented Indians include those who have legally exited India but overstayed their US visa validity; or have entered the US illegally, or without valid documents.

Irregular migration is pervasive in practice in states like Punjab, Haryana, and Gujarat, blurring the thin ethical line that separates right from wrong. According to US data, the majority of Indian asylum seekers are Punjabis and Gujaratis, who come from India’s wealthier states and can afford the high costs of irregular migration. In reality, they are economic migrants rather than coming from the country’s poorest or conflicted geographies; and the claim of persecution or the argument of the ‘slide of democracy’ in India as the cause is specious, to say the least. In a sense these states have ceded ground, now occupied by organised networks of private players who operate an irregular migration industry with a seamless presence in the countries of origin, transit, and destination. This primarily includes travel agents, education enrolment agents, and brokers who constitute powerful networks.

With low wages, high income inequality, and the absence of nonfarm avenues of economic opportunity, as is the case in much of rural Punjab, there is an adverse selection process at work. Those with greater incentive to choose the irregular migration route are workers who have below-average education and skills. The costs of irregular migration are perceived as smaller than the expected gains in wages, thus providing the migrant an incentive at the margin to choose the wrong over right, at considerable cost. In terms of flows, therefore, it is clear that there are some high-risk areas from where small streams of people attempt to take the irregular migration route. Local travel agents and higher education enrolment agents who lure the victims or their families are completely unregulated. In terms of the modus operandi, the student pathway and the employment pathway are converging insidiously. The education enrolment agents entice potential migrants purportedly to enroll in an education programme of higher study, but in reality, enable the migrant to work illegally without a work permit. It is time these agents, like recruitment agents, are brought under the purview of the Emigration Act 1983 and regulated by the Protector General of Emigrants.

The role of these intermediary networks of agents and brokers cannot be overstated. They explore different country options to maintain flexibility in their operations and to evade action by law-enforcing agencies. They constitute the driving force of the irregular migration circuits – an invisible, extensive, and transnational network – that thrives on an equally wide grey market within the countries of destination, that, in turn, thrives on the supply of cheap labour. A first step, therefore, is to strike hard against this network in both the countries of origin and destination: India and the US. This will require a bilateral agreement to weed out these exploitative and insidious brokers’ networks through rule-based, transparent, and non-discriminatory action. As for the deported undocumented workers, as we extend our sympathies, we need to consider the choices people make and the consequences they are left to face.

(Gurucharan Gollerkeri is a former civil servant enjoys traversing the myriad spaces of ideas, thinkers, and books)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.