Two lakh Indians live illegally in US: Report

As many as two lakh Indians are living illegally in the United States, a latest official report on illegal residents for the year 2009 has claimed.

This is a jump of 40,000 as against 1,60,000 illegal Indians living in the US in the year 2008.

This jump in unauthorised Indians living in the US comes at a time when there is a decline in the number of illegal foreign residents from 11.6 million in January 2008 to 10.8 million in January 2009, a drop of seven per cent.

"Between 2000 and 2007, the unauthorised population grew by 3.3 million from 8.5 million to 11.8 million," said the report Estimates of the Unauthorised Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2009, released by the US Department of Homeland Security yesterday.

"The number of unauthorised residents declined by 1 million between 2007 and 2009, coincident with the US economic downturn. The overall annual average increase in the unauthorised population during the 2000-2009 period was 250,000," the report said.

Mexico with 6.7 million (62 per cent) continued to be the leading source of unauthorised immigration to the US. The next leading source countries for unauthorised immigrants in 2009 were El Salvador (530,000), Guatemala (480,000), Honduras (320,000), the Philippines (270,000) and India (200,000), the report said.

Between 2000 and 2009, Mexican-born unauthorised immigrant population increased 2.0 million or 42 per cent.

"The greatest percentage increases occurred among unauthorised immigrants from Honduras (95 per cent), Guatemala (65 per cent), and India (64 per cent)," the report said.