Undocumented Immigrants From Asia More Rarely Deported in U.S.

With the Trump administration struggling to realize its plan of 1 million deportations in 2025 and reportedly angry at the lack of progress just 1.5 months into its term, another challenge might arise: Deporting immigrants from further afield.

According to the latest available data, Indian and Chinese citizens are actually among the six most common nationalities of people living in the United States undocumented. Pew Research Center based on Census data estimated their numbers at 725,000 and 375,000 people, respectively, in 2022. Overall, the analysis estimated that there are 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., of which 4 million come from Mexico.

However, Indian and Chinese citizens are not found among the most common nationalities deported from the United States. In 2022, only 733 Indians and 264 Chinese were deported from the U.S. - ranks 13 and 19, respectively.

The fact that more Mexicans and Central Americans show up in U.S. deportation statistics also has to do with the fact that some migrants get deported directly by Customs and Border Protection and that even ICE action, going after migrants that have already entered the United States, has focused on regions close to the Mexican border recently. While migrants from other continents have been known to cross the Southern U.S. border as well, many of them enter the United States by overstaying a visa.

But as the Trump administration has once again moved to bar immigrants from presenting to immigration courts on the Southern border, limiting deportations there, and instead is focusing its enforcement action in the entire country, deportations should come to mirror undocumented immigrant populations more closely. The results would be a more varied, and due to locations further way, a more expensive set of destinations for repatriation flights as well as engaging with more separate governments on enabling deportations.