We’ve heard one tragic story after another from the Canadian-US border. In one case, a Gujarati family — a husband, wife and two children — perished just 10 metres from the US border, struck down by the freezing cold. Another Gujarati family of four drowned when their boat sank in the St. Lawrence River as they attempted to cross into the US.

In the US, illegal immigration has become a massively divisive issue. It was one of Donald Trump’s grimmest threats on the last day of campaigning. If Mexico didn’t stop the “onslaught of criminals and drugs,” Trump warned he would “immediately impose a 25 per cent tariff on everything they send” to the US, threatened apocalyptically to make it 50 per cent “and if that doesn’t work, I’ll make it 75.”

The immigration debate isn’t confined to the US. In Germany, the ruling party narrowly held onto to power in Brandenburg, holding off the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) which had made illegal immigration one of its main election planks. The ruling SPD had been in power in Brandenburg since 1990 and this was the first time it came close to losing.

Move across Europe to Italy where right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Melonia is struggling to save her ambitious plan to pack off illegal immigrants rescued at sea to offshore detention centres in Albania. Her scheme’s just been struck down by the Italian courts but she’s determined to reintroduce, closely watched by other European leaders eager for similar solutions.

Illegal immigration from India to the US has also surged. In the 2023 fiscal year, more than 96,000 Indians were apprehended trying to smuggle themselves into the US, mainly from Mexico or Canada. These arrests likely represent only a small portion of the Indians who succeeded in getting past border controls.

In the UK, the number of Indians attempting the risky English Channel crossing from France shot up to 1,000 in 2023. That’s not a huge number but that’s because most Indians entering the UK fly in with visas but overstay. Indians often claim asylum but that hardly ever works. Between 2008 and 2023, 14,000 are thought to have claimed asylum but just 450 of those claims have succeeded.

Britain has struggled to curb immigration. What was seen as excessive immigration was almost certainly one key reason why Britain voted to leave the European Union. The previous government desperately tried to push through a plan under which illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers would be packed off to Rwanda. But that was a non-starter and the new Labour government scrapped it.

It’s not tough to understand why globally illegal immigration has shot through the roof, driven by crises and instability. Large numbers of Afghans have claimed asylum in the UK since the Taliban’s return, although most claims are denied unless the applicants were working with the British armed forces and are now face significant danger from the Afghan government.

Trouble spots

The war in Ukraine has also created a very different set of issues. Pro-Ukrainian countries in Western Europe have been forced to take in many migrants. Several million Ukrainians — many of them women and children — have fled the war-torn country. Nearly a million have crossed the border into Poland. Another million are in Germany.

Scan the globe and the number of trouble spots is going up at an alarming rate. Saddam Hussein may have been a brutal dictator but apolitical Iraqis could lead a fairly untroubled life. It’s a similar story in Syria that has turned into a battleground between its ruler Bashar al-Assad and rebel forces. Even Libya was a rich oil-producing nation under the eccentric Muammar Gaddafi. Today, it’s only just settling down after many years of conflict.

In India, it’s the job shortage that’s triggering an exodus, especially in States like Punjab and Haryana. Head west to Gujarat and a different phenomenon appears to be at work. Here, the people who put their lives at risk with people traffickers appear more affluent and middle-class but still hoping for a richer lifestyle in the US. One driving force is the hope of getting jobs with Gujaratis already living in the US and also running their own businesses there which can take on new migrants.

If we looking forward, the challenges surrounding illegal immigration will intensify amid the global upheaval. Policymakers will face tough questions about border security, fair asylum rules and the economic factors driving migration. Without political cooperation, the global migration tug-of-war will persist, bringing further human costs and stoking diplomatic tensions.

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