It is an irony that people who migrate to countries like the United States and Canada, end up doing menial jobs after spending huge sums of money to reach there. With the same amount of money, they can do much better jobs back home, yet they choose to go abroad. It is a syndrome so difficult to explain.
The urge to emigrate to the west, particularly the United States and Canada, is almost a ‘pandemic syndrome’ in states like Punjab, Gujarat and to a large extent, Haryana. People from southern states like Telangana and Andhra Pradesh also seek greener pastures abroad, however, they avoid the “alternate” (read illegal) routes.
While tens of thousands of people attempt to migrate to the US every year, hundreds of them get deported back.
Deportation is not a new phenomenon and did not start with Donald Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration policies. Deportations have been taking place for years together. Trump is only trying to make political capital out of it by creating a lot of hype about deportations.
Conversations with several people of Indian origin revealed how they have survived deportation attempts by the Immigration Officials in the US. While a large number of them were lucky to survive and eventually settle down and get legal status, quite a number of them were unlucky as well and had to come back.
Despite the aggressive campaigns launched by the provincial governments in Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat against “travel agents” for sending people illegally abroad, the trend is unlikely to stop. People are ready to take any risk even now.
It is difficult to accept that the “travel agents” really cheat the prospective emigrants into paying hefty sums of money. Anyone paying huge amounts of money to travel agents to take the alternate routes to the US is doing it with full knowledge. If everything goes off well, as happens in a number of the cases, and the person lands in the US, the matter ends there. The “emigrant” then refers more people to the same agent.
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But once things go wrong, as is happening currently, the “travel agents” are turned into fall guys. The “travel agents” are supposed to ensure the entry of the “emigrants” into the US. And once that process is complete, their responsibility ends. Now, to blame them and slap cases on them to satisfy the “collective conscience” of the society just because the US government has launched a campaign against illegal immigration is unfair to them. No travel agent can guarantee a permanent stay in the US. The travel agent’s job ends in making the person land in that country, no matter which way.
This is not to defend the travel agents in any way, but this is the truth. A lot of people in Punjab, Gujarat and Haryana can go to any extent to get an entry into the US, Canada or any of the European countries.
The tragic death of the four members of ‘Patel’ family from Gujarat while trying to cross to the US from Canada in the winter of 2022, due to harsh cold weather conditions caused by a blizzard under -38 degrees temperature, are still fresh. Even that tragedy did not deter others from taking similar routes to the US.
Ironically, it is the relatively well-off families which send their wards abroad legally or illegally. The Patels had a visitor visa to Canada from where they tried to slip into the US. Jagdish Patel and his wife, both were working as teachers in Gujarat living in a double-storey house on the outskirts of Gandhiangar. The family, according to their neighbours, was quite well off from local standards.
Same is the case with aspiring emigrants from Haryana and Punjab. On an average it takes Rs 20 to Rs 50 lakh for reaching the US or Canada, legally or illegally. To arrange such huge amounts of money is not an easy thing to do and not within the reach of everyone. Only people with good resources can manage this money.
While it is almost impossible to procure a legal visitor US visa using “illegal” documents due to strict scrutiny, the Canadian government so far has not been so strict. That is why people first try to migrate to Canada using the visitor or student visa route before moving to the US.
The “crackdown” on the travel agents by different state governments is not the solution. There is no dearth of such agents. Huge hoardings of travel agents promising PR, short form for ‘permanent residency’ in countries like the US, Canada, Australia and Europe can be seen anywhere and everywhere across the cities and small towns in Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat. With the advent of social media, reaching out to prospective emigrants is easier for these travel agents.
At the heart of the issue is the urge among people to migrate to different countries even if they have to put everything at stake. People sell off their family sliver, like land, to arrange funds for the migration of their wards.
In the year 2023-24, students from Punjab spent $3.7 billion to study in Canada alone. If the expenses of students studying in the US, Australia and Europe are added, it may touch about $5 billion, which roughly comes to about Rs 44 thousand crore. This may be unbelievable, but it is true. This might well be one of the reasons for financial strain on state as such a huge amount of money goes out every year.
This syndrome is likely to persist till people do not realise and understand that the grass on that side of the seven seas is not really that green. The tempting lifestyle of the NRIs traveling from different countries back home, should not lure people here without weighing the risks involved. It will need a sustained campaign here to motivate people, the youth in particular, that they can do much better back home with the “quantum of money” they invest for going abroad. Most of them end up doing menial jobs to start with, which they can never imagine doing back home. Of course, they will not really need to do those type of jobs here as they have better options, more so with the money they afford to spend to go abroad.
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