Pew Research: India 4th largest source of illegal migrants in US

© [Xinhua

Activists demonstrate for immigration reform and labor rights on a street during a rally in New York, the United States, May 1, 2013, the International Labor Day.

Even as the US debates immigration reform, a new report says four per cent of the total illegal immigrants living in the US are Indians.

The figures of illegal immigrants in the United States has remained unchanged since 2009 at 11.2 million, says a new report by Pew Research.

India is 4^th in the top five source countries of unauthorized immigrants to the US since 2005.

, on Wednesday, quoted a White House source as saying US President Barack Obama is poised to give relief from deportation to millions of undocumented immigrants who are parents of US citizens or of permanent legal residents.

More than 450,000 "unauthorized" Indian immigrants were living in the US, constituting four per cent of the total illegal immigrants in the country in the year 2012.

Obama has said earlier this year that he would like to improve the US legal immigration system in a way that "makes this underground migration system less necessary." He has had a showdown with Republicans in Congress who have refused to pass legislation that would aid in fixing immigration problems.

Indian are the largest unauthorised immigrants in New Hampshire, says the Pew report.

While the Indian illegal immigrants comprise second largest population in Indiana with four per cent, the percentages in other states were Michigan (14 per cent), Minnesota (nine per cent), New Jersey (11 per cent), Ohio (11 per cent), Pennsylvania (11 per cent) and Washington (five per cent), the report said.

Indians were the third largest unauthorised immigrants in Alaska (four per cent), Arizona (two per cent), Delaware (seven per cent), Illinois (five per cent), Kansas (five per cent), Massachusetts (ten per cent), Missouri (nine per cent)and Oregon (two per cent).

Although the US population of unauthorised immigrants was stable from 2009 to 2012, the number of Mexicans in this population fell by about half a million people during those years.

Unauthorised immigrant populations from South America and from a grouping of Europe and Canada held steady between 2009 and 2012, whereas it grew slightly from Asia, the Caribbean, Central America and the rest of the world for the same period.

The top five source countries of unauthorized immigrants to the US are Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, India and Honduras.