The Long, Perilous Route Thousands Of Indians Have Risked For A Shot At Life In U.S.

Enlarge this image

Gurmeet Singh holds a photo of his granddaughter, Gurupreet Kaur, who died of heatstroke in Arizona in June 2019. The 6-year-old and her mother had just crossed into the U.S. from Mexico.

hide caption

toggle caption

Lauren Frayer/NPR

Enlarge this image

Amandeep Singh, 19, at his family’s farm in rural Punjab, India. Singh paid a smuggler about $22,000 to help him cross the U.S.-Mexico border, but he was deported from Mexico in October.

hide caption

toggle caption

Lauren Frayer/NPR

Enlarge this image

Sevak Singh, 26, in front of his family’s home in rural Punjab. Singh planned to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally but was deported from Mexico in October. He admits that he and other Punjabi Sikh migrants rehearsed fake backstories about being persecuted in India to try to win asylum in the United States.

hide caption

toggle caption

Lauren Frayer/NPR

Enlarge this image

A section of border fence between Mexico and the U.S. in Calexico, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2017.

hide caption

toggle caption

Mike Blake/Reuters

A section of border fence between Mexico and the U.S. in Calexico, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2017.

Mike Blake/Reuters

The stories were untrue but were rooted in decades-old strife. The 1970s and 1980s saw a backlash against Sikhs in India, as a violent separatist movement asserted itself. In 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. Thousands of Sikhs were killed in subsequent riots.

Singh tells NPR that he has not been persecuted in India. He has just had a really tough life of poverty, he says. He felt confident that if only he could convince U.S. authorities of how tough he has had it, they would let him in.

«I am from a poor family. You can see the condition we’re living in,» he told NPR in late January, in an interview at his family’s simple mud-brick house in rural Punjab. He perched on the edge of a bed with his mother beside him. «I dreamed about going to a foreign land and improving my family’s finances. I thought, ‘So many people go there. Why can’t I go?’ «

Evaluating persecution claims

Some Indians in U.S. detention have gone on hunger strikes. They accuse U.S. officials of not taking their claims seriously.

But U.S. and Indian officials say most Indians who are detained on the U.S.-Mexico border and subsequently claim persecution are economic migrants like Singh and do not have strong cases for asylum. NPR spoke to four Indians recently deported from Mexico, including the two quoted in this story. All four called themselves economic migrants — not asylum-seekers.

With the uptick in the number of Indians detained on the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that evaluates «credible fear» claims of asylum-seekers, implemented new India-specific, anti-fraud training for its officers starting in April 2019.

In the six months prior to that training, «credible fear» had been found in 89% of Indian nationals evaluated by USCIS officers. After the training, the rate dropped to 17% in the five months leading up to February 2020.

The U.S. government concluded that a majority of the Indian migrants who had been claiming persecution prior to April 2019 were doing so fraudulently.

Lying about persecution «definitely obscures and endangers the authentic asylum-seekers that are able to — by some miracle — make it to the U.S. and file applications for relief,» says Deepak Ahluwalia, a California-based immigration lawyer who has represented Indian asylum-seekers in U.S. immigration courts.

Ahluwalia worries that amid the humanitarian crisis over migrants from many countries on the U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. authorities are incorrectly or unfairly overlooking some with credible persecution claims, including Indian Sikhs. He has represented other asylum-seekers who say they’ve been persecuted in India for being gay, lower caste or Muslim.

«I will try to go again»

Back home in his mother’s kitchen in Punjab, Amandeep Singh, the 19-year-old deportee, spins tales for his little brother about his time walking through the jungles of Central America. It was the adventure of his life, he says.

Singh is constantly texting with the smuggler he hired, trying to get his $22,000 back. But he hasn’t called the police for help and has no plans to do so.

More than 900 alleged smugglers were arrested in Punjab last year, but very few have been prosecuted and the conviction rate is low, says Mann, the senior police intelligence official.

«Because the clients and agents often make a deal: The person who has been cheated gets his money back, and in return, they request to police that the agent be let go,» Mann explains. «They compromise with each other.»

It’s difficult to prove a crime when there’s no victim, he says.

That’s the case for Singh. He refuses to tell NPR the name of his smuggler. He’s trying to cut a deal with the man so he can get a refund. And even while under lockdown because of the coronavirus, he’s holding out hope.

«I realize America’s hard hit by the coronavirus. But I’m determined to get there,» he says. «I will try to go again.»

To pass time, he’s working in the fields and searching for a better smuggler, he says — one who will really get him to the U.S. next time.

NPR producer Sushmita Pathak contributed to this report.