The article argues that at the centre of the imbroglio of irregular migration in India are indigent migrants whose reality cannot be adequately captured with terms like ‘undocumented’ or ‘irregular’, commonly used to refer to clandestine or ‘illegal’ migration. Rather, they give new and somewhat disturbing meaning to the term ‘transnational migrants’ by belonging, in a de facto sense, to both countries and paradoxically, increasingly unwanted by them.