INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Indians are often bonded out of detention in US by human trafficking rings, an official said.The number of Indians arrested for illegally
entering the United States has nearly tripled so far in 2018, making them one of the largest groups of illegal aliens apprehended,
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Friday.Paying smuggling rings between $25,000-$50,000 per person, a growing number of
Indians are illegally crossing the US-Mexico border and claiming asylum for persecution, CBP spokesman Salvador Zamora said.Many present
viable claims, but a large number are economic migrants with fraudulent petitions that swamp the system and can cause legitimate cases to be
"washed out" in the high volume of fraud, Mr Zamora said in an interview.The Indian embassy in Washington and the Indian consulate in San
Francisco did not respond to requests for comment.Mr Zamora said the CBP expects that the data for the fiscal year that ends on September 30
will show "around 9,000" Indian nationals had been apprehended versus 3,162 in fiscal year 2017.Around 4,000 Indians who entered the United
States illegally this year did so over a three-mile stretch of border fence at Mexicali, Mr Zamora said."The word got out that Mexicali is a
safe border city which favors their crossing into the United States," he said.Cut And Paste EvidenceAsylum seekers range from lower caste
"untouchable" Indians facing death threats for marrying outside their class to Sikhs claiming political persecution, immigration lawyers
said.Fraudulent asylum seekers often present "cut and paste" evidence identical to that of other migrants, Zamora said.Some 42.2 percent of
Indian asylum cases were denied between fiscal years 2012 to 2017, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access
That compares with denial rates of 79 percent for El Salvadorans and 78 percent for Hondurans.After Mexicans, citizens of Guatemala,
Honduras and El Salvador were most likely to enter the United States illegally in 2018, according to Border Patrol data
Indians still have some way to go to outnumber the roughly 30,000 El Salvadorans who entered the United States illegally in 2018, the data
showed.After being held in the United States, Indians are often bonded out of detention by human trafficking rings, Zamora said
They then enter indentured servitude in businesses ranging from hotels to convenience stores to pay off smuggling debts and bond fees,
Zamora said.(Reporting by Andrew Hay; editing by Bill Tarrant and Leslie Adler)© Thomson Reuters 2018
