In 2019, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported just under 100 Central Asians; in fiscal year 2024 nearly 750 were removed from the United States and returned to the region.
While Central Asians account for a tiny portion – less than 0.3 percent – of the 271,484 noncitizens deported from the United States in 2024, the dramatic increase in the number of Central Asians attempting to enter, or remain in, the U.S. illegally reflects the knock-on effects of the Russian war in Ukraine; worsening conditions for Central Asians in Russia more broadly, particularly since the March 2024 Crocus City Hall attack; and a degree of malicious opportunism among human traffickers promising a pathway to the U.S.
As made obvious by the graph below, the vast majority of Central Asians deported from the U.S. last year were from Uzbekistan – 572 individuals – according to ICE’s 2024 Annual Report, published in December. Tajikistan is second, with 77 people, and Kyrgyzstan third with 69. In all three, the numbers of citizens apparently attempting to enter or stay in the U.S. illegally has increased dramatically since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In the case of Kyrgyzstan, while just one Kyrgyz citizen was deported in fiscal year 2022, 14 were deported in the following fiscal year, and 69 in fiscal year 2024.
In the U.S., the fiscal year (FY) is the 12-month period that runs from October 1 to September 30 of the following year. FY2024 refers to the period running from October 2023 to September 2024.
Tajikistan’s numbers have remained steady, at 3 or 4 individuals since 2019, until the massive leap in FY2024 to 77.
No Central Asian country comes close to Uzbekistan. This is, in part, a product of proportion. Uzbekistan’s population is nearing 40 million, while Kyrgyzstan’s is just over 7 million and Tajikistan’s is over 10 million. But it’s not just a matter of proportion: Kazakhstan’s population surpassed 20 million in 2023, but in FY2024 the U.S. deported just 23 Kazakh citizens – an increase over the 14 expelled in FY2023, but fewer than the 26 expelled in FY2019.
As I wrote in the February 2023 issue of The Diplomat Magazine:
Uzbek citizens wishing to travel to the United States for tourism or business require a visa. Those wishing to move permanently to the United States require, more than anything else, luck.
In 2021, there were 466,480 Uzbek entrants in the Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) program – commonly still called the “green card lottery – which is a U.S. State Department program that doles out a limited number of highly coveted permanent resident cards to aspiring U.S. immigrants. Counting “derivatives,” that is spouses and children, the total was nearly 833,000 Uzbeks. This was a decline from 2020 (2.6 million total) and 2019 (2.8 million), but still an extraordinary number of Uzbeks consistently express their desire to relocate to the United States.
In 2021, more Uzbeks entered the so-called Diversity Lottery than Iranians (404,863), Nepalis (421,765), and Ethiopians (401,661). Only the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) had more entrants (593,917) than Uzbekistan in 2021. In terms of total applicants (entrants plus their derivatives) only Egypt had more in the 2021 lottery: 872,505, thanks to a larger derivatives figure.
This attests to an existing interest in moving to the United States, an interest that has arguably heightened as work conditions in Russia, which is far easier for an Uzbek to migrate to, have worsened. This existing desire also generates opportunities for malicious individuals to exploit their fellow countrymen and women.
In the last two years, there have been increased reports of scammers offering Uzbek citizens wild pathways to the United States, mixed with tales of genuine human traffickers offering the same thing. That some make it, despite the barriers, entices more to try because immigrating to the United States legally, or even getting a tourist visa to visit, is tremendously difficult.
The ICE report does not provide detail about individual cases, and certainly does not dive into the nuances of Central Asian migration.
But one factor ICE notes is that, overall, it “removed significantly more noncitizens in FY 2024 than in both FY 2023 and FY 2022.” The report tied this increase, in part, to “successful in-country negotiations that resulted in approvals for an increased number of removal flights…” The ICE report cited “intensive diplomatic efforts” by the Department of Homeland Security that “resulted in an increased number of charter flights in FY 2024 to countries in the Eastern Hemisphere.”
These included the first large charter removal flight to China since FY2018, as well as the first large charter flights to a number of countries in Africa and Asia, including Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.