The deportation of a few hundred Indians from the US is unlikely to deter illegal immigration, nor is the rounding up of a few dodgy intermediaries. Narratives that valorise the pursuit of the American Dream, both in the Indian and the US media, are a relentless push-and-pull factor encouraging lakhs of youth to attempt the hazardous business of breaching borders.

It is no coincidence that most of the recent deportees are from Punjab, a state where illegal immigration to the West has been normalised to the point that it is reflected in popular culture. Songs celebrating the ‘donkey route’ and films and social media posts documenting the experience promote a sympathetic view of illegal immigrants.

The standout feature is that the failed immigration attempts arose not from destitution, but aspiration. The very fact that the majority of immigrants were able to raise the resources to fund their visas or take the illegal route, a minimum of Rs 35 lakh, underlines that for most, immigration is a choice and not a compulsion. Wannabe immigrants choose to defy laws and border restrictions and engage nefarious actors and lawyers at a high cost in pursuit of the NRI dream.

So, the tendency to frame immigrants as victims is, at least, partly misplaced, because they are not escaping untenable situations of oppression or privation. (Although many migrants applied for and obtained ‘asylum’ on grounds of........

© Free Press Journal