Indians in the US without legal permit are freaking out as Trump takes oath on 20th Jan

Millions of immigrants who have gone to the USA without proper VISA or have exceeded their stay are tensed as Donald Trump is all set to take oath as the 45th President. Trump during his election campaign has pledged to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants if he is elected.

Many Indians have travelled to the States as students and overstayed finding a job with Indian employers. Some of them went as normal tourists and never returned after finding odd jobs in the country.

Now as the new government comes in, undocumented immigrants as well as Indian IT companies are worried over stricter laws of immigration. According to Pew Research Center, half a million unauthorised Indian Americans are staying in the US during 2014, which is 43% increase over 2009.

It has been estimated that over 14,000 of the 8.8 lakh Indians on visitor or business visas overstayed in the US in 2015. Overstaying means a non-immigrant who was lawfully admitted to the US for an authorised period but stayed or remains in the country beyond his or her lawful admission period. However, some Indians also entered the US on a fraudulent passport, and others crossed the border, from either Canada or Mexico, without inspection.

"Typically, many Indians enter the US on a visitor or student visa and then overstaying and working there illegally in a relative's motel or convenience store. This will now stop to a great extent since their American relatives would be afraid of giving them jobs,” a Mumbai based immigration lawyer Sudhir Shah told the Economic Times.

“However, it will be bureaucratically impossible and prohibitively costly to deport all the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country,” Cyrus Mehta, a New York-based attorney told the ET. In his view, the new president could try to deport immigrants with criminal records. "But even that will be difficult, because not every criminal conduct results in deportation under the law. Moreover, an unauthorised immigrant cannot simply be ejected from the US.”