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Over 200,000 Indian illegal residents in US

T V Parasuram in Washington

More than 200,000 Indians reside illegally in the United States which, however, is a minuscule proportion of the total number of illegal migrants in the country.

The US census bureau said that of the total 8,705,421 illegal residents in the country in the year 2000, 200,306 were Indians.

The number of illegal residents from Asia is put at 1,363,419.

In addition to Indians, there were 40,000 illegal residents from Pakistan, 114,818 from Arab countries, 30,823 from Iran and 226,886 from China and Taiwan.

North and Central America account for 5,312,090 illegal residents, while 624,419 are from South America and 1,113,683 from Europe.

Americans are now more concerned about immigrants following the September 11 terror strikes.

The government has already decided to expel 6,000 Arab Muslims.

This is the first time the Bureau has given estimates of illegal residents by nationality.

As it is difficult to count illegal residents, census officials used an estimating technique that took the foreign-born population and removed legal immigrants, assumed deaths and emigrants to arrive at its figures.

Congressman Tom Tancredo, advocate of tighter immigration laws, said the findings are not surprising as the authorities do not enforce time limits on visas.

The officials, he said, have also not decreased H1-B (temporary employment or training) visas while allowing illegal residents to obtain drivers' licences with little difficulty and more importantly, not deporting the 300,000 people who have been ordered deported.

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