Managing illegal immigration requires close Centre–State coordination. Discuss the federal challenges involved and suggest a framework.

Under the Seventh Schedule, "citizenship, naturalisation and aliens" is a Union subject, while "police" and "public order" belong to the States. The Centre makes immigration policy, but State police carry it out on the ground. The Ministry of Home Affairs' High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes (HLCDC) has been asked to propose a Centre–State coordination framework (ToR 7) [1]. This shows that the problem is federal as much as it is about security.

Federal Challenges

• Split jurisdiction: the Union frames policy, but identification and detection depend on State police and revenue staff. A State that disagrees can slow-walk enforcement.
• Divergent political framing: the PM has called demographic imbalance in border areas a national security challenge [2]. Some States treat migration mainly as a labour or humanitarian issue. Without an agreed definition of the problem, cooperation stays shallow.
• Undefined terms: "abnormal settlement" and "planned migration" have no official definition [1]. States may therefore mistake inter-State migrant workers for illegal immigrants, which would breach Article 19(1)(e).
• Uneven enforcement capacity: the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 lets officers down to Head Constable rank arrest without a warrant [3]. State forces differ widely in training, which raises the risk of wrongful detention under Article 21.
• Data silos: border, Census and State records are not linked. The committee is having to collect inputs through questionnaires and State visits [4].
• Deportation bottleneck: States hold detainees, but only the Centre can get the source country to accept them as its nationals. This leaves States carrying the cost of long detention.

Suggested Framework

• Institutional: a standing Centre–State council on immigration under the Inter-State Council (Art. 263), with Zonal Councils handling border-region issues.
• Legal clarity: uniform rules under the 2025 Act that define key terms, plus mandatory senior-officer or tribunal review before anyone is detained.
• Data integration: a shared database built on Census data. The Census Commissioner already sits on the HLCDC [5]. Data handling must follow the DPDP Act, 2023.
• Fiscal support: Central funding for detention, legal aid and border policing in frontline States.
• Diplomatic track: the Centre should agree nationality-verification timelines with neighbouring countries.
• Transparency: table the HLCDC report in Parliament, since it is an executive, non-statutory body [5].

Illegal immigration sits across both Union and State powers, so neither the Centre nor the States can manage it alone. A rule-based, data-driven framework that respects rights and is built on cooperative federalism can meet the security concerns while keeping to Article 355 and the constitutional promise of due process for every person.