It is a fairly well-known fact that several U.S. states - among them prominent coastal ones - are losing population. One major factor in this development that started some years ago (even before the pandemic) has been domestic outmigration which is sometimes tied to high cost of living. At the same time, international immigration diversified in the United States location-wise, eventually tipping the scales for these states despite many still registering more births than deaths, including California, New York, Hawaii and Illinois.
Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shows that more than 86,400 Indian nationals were stopped for trying to make unauthorized crossings at the southwest border to the United States between October 2020 and August 2024, during which time over 88,800 Indian nationals were also stopped at the northern border. While the numbers for the combined borders are lower for Indian nationals than those for populations seeking to enter from countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, Indian nationals are now the largest group of undocumented migrants who are encountered by the CBP from outside the region. The second largest group outside of the region are from China (625,196 encounters across the two borders), the world’s second nation with over a billion citizens. Here, encounters include both apprehensions and expulsions.
