Indian asylum seekers to US are speaking a different tongue

The times they are a changin, and that's true for the illegal immigration trend in the US too. While Punjabi-speaking asylum-seekers formed 66% of all Indian illegal immigrants in the US from 2001 to 2022, Hindi-speaking undocumented Indians have surged past them in recent years.

An analysis by two Johns Hopkins University researchers found that around 66% of all asylum petitions filed from 2001 to 2022 by Indian nationals came from Punjabi speakers. In that time period, the share of Hindi-speakers among Indian illegal immigrants was 14%. However, between 2017 and 2022, the number of Hindi-speaking undocumented citizens in the US grew by 30%.

Punjabi-speaking individuals have consistently been the most dominant among Indian asylum seekers for over 20 years, according to court records accessed through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

The Johns Hopkins study was released on February 10, and coincided with the deportation of illegal immigrants from the US to their home country.

On February 5, 104 undocumented immigrants were deported to India. Another flight from the US is expected to land in Amritsar with 119 such Indians on February 15. A third such plane with deportees is slated to land on February 16.

There are around 6,75,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US, according to a Pew Research report. The number of total Indians in the US is 5.1 million.

Indians' asylum claims increased from 6,000 in 2020 to more than 51,000 in 2023, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This is an eightfold increase in their migration numbers. The total number of Indian asylum seekers in the US has increased by 470% in the past 5 years.

Between 2001 and 2022, around 66% of all asylum petitions filed by Indian nationals came from Punjabi speakers, suggesting that a large portion of these individuals likely hailed from Punjab or nearby states like Haryana.

A significant rise is also seen in the rise of Hindi-speaking undocumented immigrants in the US.Traditionally, Hindi speakers made up about 14% of Indian asylum cases. However, data by TRAC shows that between 2017 and 2022, this share has nearly doubled to 30%.

This trend suggests a growing diversity among Indian migrants, with more people from Hindi-speaking regions now seeking asylum in the US.Other language groups are not far behind.

English speakers contributed to around 8% of asylum cases, followed by Gujarati speakers at 7%.The number of petitions heard by these Indian language groups is also fairly larger than other language groups.

The US immigration judges have granted 63% of cases involving Punjabi speakers and 58% of cases involving Hindi speakers, but only 25% of cases petitioned by Gujarati speakers were granted.

These disparities make one question whether different groups were being treated equally under the existing asylum procedure.

Research by Budiman and Kapur states that economic factors are a major reason behind immigration. It highlights the data from the 2019-2022 American Community Survey (ACS), that amongst all Indians living in the US, those who speak Punjabi at home have the lowest average income, around USD 48,000.

In comparison, Gujarati speakers earn about USD 58,000 on average. This difference in income suggests that economic struggles in places like Punjab push people to migrate in search of better financial opportunities.

The cost of migrating is also extremely high, often ranging from 30 to 100 times India’s average income per person.Because of these high costs, only people with significant assets, like land, can afford to start the process.

More people are asking for asylum in the US as immigration rules change rapidly. At the same time, the government is trying new ways to stop illegal border crossings.

For example, in the first week of President Trump's second term, the U.S. government closed the CBP One app—a tool that had helped thousands of migrants schedule appointments for their asylum cases.

This shutdown cancelled almost 300,000 migrant appointments, including many asylum cases.

Recent studies on asylum claims show a complicated situation. Even as Trump enforces stricter immigration rules, the number of formal asylum applications keeps rising—mainly from Punjabi speakers, with a growing number of Hindi speakers.

As immigration policies focus on both border security and humanitarian considerations, the experiences of these migrants highlight the economic factors that contribute to global migration today.