Around 97,000 Indians held while unlawfully sneaking into US between Oct 2022 to Sept 2023: Report

The number of Indians arrested while unlawfully entering into the United States between October 2022 and September 2023 has witnessed a record-breaking increase with nearly 96,917 Indian citizens being apprehended, news agency PTI reported citing the latest data released by US Customs and Border Protection (UCBP).

According to the data, in 2019-20, 19,883 Indians were apprehended, whereas in 2020-21, 30,662 Indians were arrested and in 2021-22 this number was 63,927.

As many as 96,917 Indians were arrested between October 2022 and September 2023, out of which 30,010 were caught on the Canadian border and 41,770 at the frontier with Mexico.

The ones apprehended have been tagged under four categories which are, Accompanied Minors (AM), Individuals in a Family Unit (FMUA), Single Adults, and Unaccompanied Children (UC).

As per the reports, single adults account for the largest category.

In the fiscal year 2023, 84,000 Indian adults sneaked into the United States unlawfully. 730 unaccompanied minors were among the ones apprehended.

Criminal cartels in Mexico train migrants, saysSenator James Lankford

Meanwhile, Senator James Lankford said on Thursday that such people take about four flights including through countries like France to be able to get to Mexico, which is the closest airport, and then take a bus that is rented by the cartels up to the border to be dropped off for their final delivery.

“So far this year we've had 45,000 people from India that have crossed our southern border, paid the cartels, crossed into our country, and said they have fear in their country from India,” Lankford said.

He then reiterated that the criminal cartels in Mexico were the ones training migrants across the world on how to trick officials and sneak into the country while awaiting an asylum hearing.

“This doesn't make sense to just about everyone in the world. Just about everyone in the world has shifted on this except for us. We're literally inviting people from all over the world to exploit our system,” he said in his remarks about America's broken asylum system and the areas that need to be addressed in policy.

He said that asylum is the same as refugee status, "it's the same in international law. A refugee flees to a spot who is afraid and gets to a refugee centre and says to the UN, ‘I have dramatic fear of persecution in my country.' If they do, then they actually share them all over the world including here in the United States."

“We take refugees here from all over the world. Asylum seekers are on the same standard. They're supposed to go to the next safe place, get there, and request asylum. That is the international standard, but we don't do that here,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)