Indian migrants are coming into California in record numbers during the Biden administration.
A total of 988,900 migrant encounters at U.S. borders were documented between October and December 2023 overall, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data, including 371,036 encounters in December alone. Encounters refer to the number of apprehensions or expulsions involving border authorities, not the number of migrants themselves.
The cost of what many perceive as a broken U.S. immigration system has burdened American taxpayers in states like California, which, according to the nonpartisan Federation for American Immigration Reform, has the most “illegal aliens,” as well as the most “illegal aliens” who also have children living in the U.S. The tax burden for Californians far exceeds every other state, costing residents in total about $22.82 billion for individual migrants and approximately $30.93 billion when taking children into account, according to FAIR.
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Migration from India has accelerated since fiscal year 2021, which concluded in September of that year and after President Joe Biden had been in office for about 10 months. A total of 30,662 migrant encounters involving Indians were recorded at both the northern and southern U.S. borders that year, increasing to 63,927 in fiscal year 2022 and 96,917 in fiscal year 2023.
Between October and December of the current fiscal year (2023-2024), the total encounter count involving Indian migrants is 23,898 individuals.
In California, Indian migrant encounters spiked from 2,516 in fiscal year 2021 to 8,262 and 9,442 in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, respectively. Between October and December of the current fiscal year, Indian migrant encounters totaled 3,732 in The Golden State.
Indian migrants are now the largest immigrant group in the Bay Area’s two biggest counties, Santa Clara and Alameda, totaling some 250,000 residents according to The Mercury News. That number alone would quantify it as the Bay Area’s fourth-largest individual city in terms of population.
California’s Indian-born population has increased from the seventh largest to the fourth largest since 2010, almost doubling in population within that timespan.
Indian migrants across the U.S. compose the second-highest immigrant group behind Mexicans, according to the nonpartisan research group Migration Policy Institute (MPI). About 2.7 million Indian immigrants live in the country and outnumber Chinese and Filipino immigrants.
While Indian migrants made up approximately 6 percent of the U.S. foreign-born population in 2021, the MPI says that “the pace of arrivals from India and other non-European countries in subsequent decades has been rapid.”
“The Southern border has just become a staging ground for migrants from all parts of the world to come to the U.S. most quickly,” MPI lawyer Muzaffar Chishti told NBC News in November. “Why would you wait for a visitor visa in Delhi if you can make it faster to the Southern border?”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.