The terminology used to describe the recent repatriation of undocumented Indian migrants from the U.S. gives an insight into how the choice of words can be used to frame a group of people with grace and basic human dignity, or call into question their very existence as human beings.
Namrata Raju
Pic Credit: United States Government via Wikimedia Commons
Last month, the unceremonious repatriation of 104 undocumented Indian migrants via a U.S. military aircraft drove a frisson of rage across the Indian public. Reports of their hands being shackled throughout the 40-hour flight home left many readers perturbed by the treatment of undocumented Indian migrants, and they were correct to feel unnerved. Various arguments were made with several citizens flagging the palpable concerns surrounding the human indignity with which people were treated. Others erroneously proposed that these undocumented migrants were “criminals” and must face punitive action once back in India.
This article assesses two key factors typically jettisoned by public discourse. The first factor involves the politics of language surrounding undocumented migration. The second entails why people might find themselves in undocumented circumstances to begin with: and what we still do not know.
“Illegal Migrant” and its Faulty Premise
Ever since the aforesaid incident last month, when the U.S. repatriated undocumented migrants to India, a deluge of headlines in the media used the term “illegal migrant”, to describe undocumented migrants.
Dissecting the language with which a group of people is described is imperative. Typically, the terminology used to describe people proffers a window of insight into biases against them, and the systemic discrimination they face. The choice of language is hence a deliberate lever: it can be used to frame a group of people with grace and basic human dignity, or alternatively, call into question their very existence as human beings.
For this reason, UN bodies, civil society organisations, rights groups, and several rights-abiding states have long advocated against the use of the term “illegal” when referring to migrants. A 2005 thematic expert report, commissioned by the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM), posits that the term “illegal migrant” is flawed for the following reasons.
--- Undocumented Workers are Inaccurately Assumed to be Criminals
Even if undocumented migrants have migrated without the appropriate documentation, and this issue is pending resolution by the states involved, not all are criminals. The term “illegal migrant” obfuscates the two disparate issues of migrating via pathways that are irregular, and that of being a criminal. An explainer by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) notes, “Being undocumented does not constitute a crime in most countries. As it is not an offense against persons, property, or national security, it belongs to the realm of administrative law. However, even in countries where violations of immigration law are considered criminal offenses, committing a criminal offense does not make you an ‘illegal’ person.”
--- The Language of Dehumanisation
Literature and cinema are rife with stories about the hardships of migrants. Habitually, even those migrants who have emigrated formally, via state-supported pathways and infrastructure, often face discrimination in new geographies. These experiences of discrimination are typically undergirded by considerations of race, nationality, class, caste, gender, economic status, or other factors.
In his page-turning book Jasmine Days, the writer Benyamin observes, “You know how it is when you arrive in a new place and feel like you don't belong there? That hesitation to reckon with a new geography. That knowledge that this place is not mine, these ways of talking are not mine, these silences are not mine, this etiquette is not mine. So many new things to absorb. And the place also takes a little time to accept the new person. Often you have to meet the place on its own terms. Sometimes you have to work hard to earn your little corner in it. Till that place becomes yours, till you find your own equilibrium, there will be a gap between you and the place.”
In addition to these everyday tribulations that Benyamin so poignantly articulates, the language of migrants being “illegal” dehumanises them even further.
A key caveat: this article does not argue that states are devoid of the right to oversee their own sovereign borders. Although monitoring irregular migration is every state’s prerogative, it is equally vital to uphold basic human dignity and the fundamental rights of migrants during every single state-sponsored intervention. Even if undocumented, migrants are still human beings.
“It can easily be forgotten that such [undocumented] migrants are human beings who possess fundamental rights whatever their status,” notes a thematic report by expert Khalid Koser for the Global Commission on International Migration. The report also highlights that the term “illegal migrant” could have adverse implications for asylum seekers as wrongfully labelling them “illegal” may place people with claims for asylum in jeopardy.
As it is, asylum seekers are besieged by other sets of problems and often, outright hostility, despite their bleak conditions. For instance, a 2022 report by Human Rights Watch states that the egregious conduct of the Greek Coast Guard, which physically pushed back boats filled with asylum seekers to prevent them from entering their country, endangered several lives. The report references a ruling issued by the European Court of Human Rights, “concerning Greece’s illegal and life-threatening practice of pushing boats of asylum seekers back to Turkey.” In addition, the report notes, “Eleven women and children, including infants, died off the Greek island of Farmakonisi on January 20, 2014, in what survivors describe as a pushback operation. They said a Greek Coast Guard vessel was towing their boat, carrying 28 Afghans and Syrians, back towards the Turkish coast at high speed in bad weather conditions when the boat capsized.”
Alternative Terms to Use
An obvious question that follows on the heels of this language analysis is what are the more appropriate terms to use for cases akin to the migrants repatriated back from the United States? In general migration discourse, the terms, “unauthorised,” “irregular,” and “undocumented” are frequently used. While these terms are often used interchangeably, “unauthorised” and “irregular,” accord greater emphasis to legal authorisation by governments. The term “undocumented” focuses more on the dearth of documentation when migrants are within a country’s sovereign territory without the requisite official papers. In addition, the term “irregular” places emphasis on the method of migration: the use of irregular migration routes or pathways. At present, perhaps the most widely used terms in the migration policy arena are “undocumented” and/or “irregular” migrants.
Trailer of Aadujeevitham, a film based on Benyamin’s book, Goat Days
The U.S. Context: Knowns and Unknowns
Typically, undocumented migrants are not as widely discussed in the U.S. context. A recent paper by Abby Budiman and Devesh Kapur from Johns Hopkins University notes, “This is largely due to the perception of the foreign born Indian population as a predominantly high-skilled immigrant group, with most initially entering the country on work or education or family sponsored visas.”
The estimates of the exact number of unauthorised migrants in the U.S. vary extensively. According to 2022 estimates from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there was a 60% decline in the population of unauthorised migrants from 2016: the numbers apparently fell from 560,000 to 220,000. About these figures, the Budiman and Kapur paper mentioned above notes, “A major caveat is that the 2022 population estimate predates the 2023 surge in Indians encountered at U.S. borders and therefore does not account for the full extent of recent developments within the population. Altogether, DHS’s 2022 estimate implies that roughly 7% of the entire Indian foreign-born population in the U.S was unauthorized during that year.”
The above paper also notes that a state-wise origin indicates that high numbers of unauthorised migrants appear to be from Punjab and Gujarat.
Learning From Discussions on the India-Arab Gulf Corridor
Underpinning the larger question of the undignified treatment of migrants in the India-U.S. case is why migrants choose these irregular pathways in the first place, and how little we know about this. The context of undocumented migrants in the U.S. is significantly different from what we know about other corridors, such as India to the Gulf states. The latter issue has been extensively documented and studied for many years by civil society, NGOs, and academics. This is especially due to the staggering scale of low-wage migration from India to the Arab Gulf, which spiked massively during the oil boom of the 1980s. The hardships faced by low-wage migrants also became a topic of international conversation during the FIFA-2022 Men’s World Cup in Qatar.
“Barring Saudi to some extent, for every other country in the Gulf, their main point of entry is the airport. Typically, people enter with valid work documents and then become irregular, or they just do not understand that the visas that they have come on [like travel visas] are not valid,” says Vani Saraswathi, Director of Projects and Editor-at-Large at the organisation Migrant-Rights.
“In the Gulf, there is a question of [workers sometimes having] no knowledge or information. For example, we see with the Ethiopians in Saudi and Kuwait that they find jobs on a freelance basis- they will be careful, they will make as much money as they can, and they turn themselves in after working for 8 to 10 years. They take that risk because they are escaping difficulties at home.… But the majority who become undocumented cannot go and renew their own visas. It is the crux of the Kafala system- where it [the worker’s visa] is tied to the employer and you cannot renew it by yourself, so workers get forced into irregular status,” she adds.
What is striking about Saraswathi’s remarks is that similar assessments cannot yet be made in detail about the U.S. context. The Budiman and Kapur paper observes the key borders at which undocumented migrants of any origin can be apprehended: “The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) divides the country’s borders into three broad administrative subgroups based on geographic location. The first is the Southwestern border (the U.S. states of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas) bordering Mexico and accounts for by far the highest number of migrant crossings nationwide. The second is the Northern U.S.–Canada border, covering 11 northern U.S. states. The final and least frequently crossed is the Coastal Border, comprising the coastline, ports, and waterways in southeastern U.S. states, as well as U.S. territories in the Caribbean.”
Thus far, it is not clear which routes migrants take to enter the US, and why. Conversely, owing to longstanding research by civil society, NGOs, and academics in the case of the India-Arab Gulf corridor, there is a far more nuanced understanding of how people use irregular pathways. This is not so in the U.S. context yet: and it is important to acknowledge of course, that the scale and context of the problem are extremely different from that of low-wage workers emigrating in huge numbers to the Arab Gulf. For one, despite the varying estimates of undocumented Indians in the U.S., the entire population of undocumented Indians is still a very small part of the total undocumented population.
An important aspect tying this together is also the myriad media reports that arose during the recent repatriation episode, citing the use of the “dunki” route or donkey route, to enable irregular migration. This archetypally entails the use of a travel agent or middleman, which facilitates migrating via complex and irregular travel routes to enable entry into a different geography. Typically connected to aspiring migrants via informal networks, these middlemen charge them exorbitant fees, which migrants fulfill via loans and the sale of assets.
Saraswathi’s nuanced observations thus strike at the heart of the problem: what we can say about irregular migration within the India-Gulf corridor cannot yet be ascertained about the India-U.S. corridor. Furthermore, there is sparse information and discussion as to why migrants are making these arduous journeys in the first place. It is hence imperative to learn from discussions on irregular migration within other corridors such as India to the Gulf, and extend them further to other contexts as well: even if the minutiae are quite different.
Understanding Their Realities, Starting at Home
A big question encircling the above analysis still looms unanswered: why are migrants choosing this option? Is it even fair to term it a choice, if between several bad options? In the case of the India- Gulf context, it is overwhelmingly apparent that low-wage migrants emigrate both, via both formal and irregular pathways out of dire economic want. This is further compounded by a context back home where youth unemployment rates are still extremely high.
Given that taking the dunki route to the U.S. is no mean feat, one could hypothesise that at least some of this is driven by desperation: although there is still a huge amount missing from this socio-economic context to paint a full picture.
Either way, as we continue discussions on undocumented migrants, it is essential to remember their humanity and how some contexts can be especially fraught, forever altering lives. The stories of why people migrate irregularly are also varied, and could range from dire economic want or escaping political censure, to simply wanting a better life.
A favourite read of this author from the past year was Aleksandar Hemon’s, The Book of My Lives. An excerpt from the book reads:“To him, in whose throat the bone of displacement was forever stuck, it was wrong to talk about nothing when there was a perpetual shortage of words for all the horrible things that happened in the world. It was better to be silent than to say what didn't matter. One had to protect from the onslaught of wasted words the silent place deep inside oneself, where all the pieces could be arranged in a logical manner, where the opponents abided by the rules, where even if you ran out of possibilities there might be a way to turn defeat into victory.”
Namrata Raju is a labour and public policy researcher
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