Not the end of immigration challenges for India

The deportation of unskilled workers will inevitably grow as the developed world is seeing a paradigmatic shift in labour processes. The Indian government will have to frame a more coherent policy towards immigration

The 104 Indian illegal immigrants who arrived in US military aircraft were escorted by 45 officials. In effect, for every two passengers, there was a US official overseeing the deportees.

“For 40 hours, we were handcuffed, our feet tied with chains and were not allowed to move an inch from our seats. After repeated requests, we were allowed to drag ourselves to the washroom. The crew would open the door of the lavatory and show us in,” one deportee told the media.

It is hard to fathom why the Narendra Modi government accepted the humiliation and brutalisation of the illegal migrants as if they were hardened criminals.

The government seemed to accept the display of US belligerence towards the returnees as par for the course. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar nonchalantly claimed in Parliament, “The SOP [Standard Operating Procedure] of deportation by aircraft used by ICE [Immigration Customs and Excise] which is effective from 2012 provides for the use of restraint. We have been informed by ICE that women and children are not restrained.”

India’s acceptance means that the same protocol will continue if there are further deportations from the US to India. Many are questioning whether such savage treatment was necessary to enforce immigration laws.

By contrast Latin American nations have stood up better to US bullying. Mexico refused to accept deportation of illegal immigrants through US military aircraft. Colombia insisted on sending its own Air Force planes to bring back Colombian illegal immigrants. They were not handcuffed — with Colombian President Gustavo Petro declaring, “This provision: dignity for deportees, will be applied to all countries that send deportations to us.”

Up to now, there is no record of the US using military aircraft for deportations to India — either chartered or commercial flights have been used. By using military aircraft, the Donald Trump administration was in effect putting India on notice to co-operate in preventing illegal immigration or face consequences.

Jaishankar’s statement in Parliament that “it is in our collective interest to encourage legal mobility and discourage illegal movement” failed to address the seriousness of the issue. Given that a paradigmatic shift in labour processes is occurring in the developed world, the deportation of unskilled workers will inevitably grow. The government will have to frame a more coherent policy towards immigration.

The impact of the digital and artificial intelligence (AI) revolution on labour processes will end the forms of labour that evolved during the manufacturing revolution, by the application of steam or electricity and the division of labour on the assembly line. Both US manufacturing revolution and agriculture used to rely heavily on immigrant labour, including undocumented or illegal immigrants. They provided the cheap labour factories and farms needed for their expansion. However, after globalisation every national economy does not have to produce everything, and the US is no exception.

With most manufacturing companies relocated to China and East Asia, a new international division of labour has taken place. As the US increasingly focuses on critical and emerging technologies in the developed world, its requirements for immigrant labour will change. Technology, especially automation, has reduced the requirement of manual labour.

This is also true of US agriculture where the Covid-19 pandemic is believed to have accelerated adoption of labour-saving technology in response to labour shortages and increasing labour costs. Along with the consolidation of farms, there has also been a shift towards less labour-intensive crops.

Although immigrant labour still plays a crucial role in crop production, the trend is towards lesser reliance on it. There is a search for reliable labour solutions such as the temporary agricultural worker programmes facilitated by the H-2A visa for eligible countries.

The important point is that increasingly there will be less and less justification in the US for turning a blind eye to undocumented immigrant workers.

It may be far-fetched to think that Trump’s deportation policy is solely based on tailoring immigration to US labour requirements. However, it is impossible to ignore these changes in manufacturing and agriculture within which US immigration policy will be enforced.

The extinction of older jobs, replaced by highly-skilled workers or even AI/humanoid robots (still in development stage) applies as much to white-collar work as to blue-collar. This rationale is embedded in the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under tech-billionaire Elon Musk.

Musk’s stated goal of increasing efficiency and reducing costs is certainly taking place in a strategic context where Musk claims that eventually AI will replace most human jobs, leading to a future where humans do not need to work.

Musk ‘deleting’ entire departments of government aligns very well with his grand vision of what technology can do in the workplace. His company, Tesla’s attempts at developing a humanoid bot Optimus are, not just a hobby-like exploration of robotics.

Clearly, the US economy will need qualified workers especially in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects, healthcare, and advanced manufacturing. US immigration policies have evolved to favour them through programmes such as the H-1B visas. Skilled workers alone can keep the US globally competitive.

This is the legal mobility that Jaishankar wants to preserve. However, with the Indian higher education system being degraded gradually — deteriorating infrastructure, insufficient teacher training, and outdated educational material — across public universities, sometimes for ideological reasons, even that stream may dry up soon.

Only the well-to-do can afford to go to private universities for higher education. They will go through legal routes to work abroad. The H-1B visas or their equivalent will not go to the semi-educated with worthless degrees. They will be condemned to remain unskilled, semi-skilled, or skilled only on paper.

Although India produces 1.5 million engineers every year, industry estimates are that only 10% find jobs because of skill gap and half of all graduates in India are unemployable. They will continue to look for opportunities, including working abroad illegally.

To stop the criminalisation and brutalisation of illegal immigrants looking for greener pastures aboard, India will have to up-skill its graduates, invest more in higher education, and reskill its current workforce to engage with the seminal changes taking place in the global economy.

Bharat Bhushan is a New Delhi-based journalist.

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