I feel like I see proportionally more South Asians in the UK than the US. In the US, I see proportionally more East and Southeast Asians.

In the UK, “Asian” (in common vernacular) usually refers to descendants of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/Nepal/etc.

In the US, “Asian” usually refers to descendants of Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese/Thai/Filipino/etc.

I dunno. Where my kid went to high school, "asian" usually meant people of Indian heritage. An anecdote only, but.

What pops into my mind is that the US is closer to what you would call east Asia than it is to India, and, of course, Britain has particularly strong historical ties to India/Pakistan etc. So that might also be a factor.

Yes, got my geography wrong. I meant South/South East not East, updated my comment. Basically the former British colonies.

It's a lagging indicator. A lot of those South Asians tend to be 2nd or 3rd generation whose heritage is from the Doab and Mirpur who came to work in factories like the Michelin tyre factory in Southall, the Ford factory in Dagenham, and the textile mills up in Birmingham and North Yorkshire in the 1950s-70s. South Asian immigration to the UK slowed down by the 90s when America and Canada became easier for South Asians to emigrate to.

The immigration stats for 2022 are skewed by Ukrainian refugees and HKers fleeing to UK.

Still, there must be many reasons why asylum seekers in Calais are trying to get to the UK, when they passed through a number of EU countries first.

It feels like asylum seekers might not have the best information about the "best" place to settle, maybe they all think the UK is it, or a lot of them are going there because they have a contact (friend/relative) who can get them settled. I'd be curious to see what percentage end up where in Europe as they cross the continent, to see how many of them go all the way to Calais to try to cross to the UK.

For college educated and working class South Asians, the UK isn't a top migration priority anymore. In the UK, Wages are lower, prices much higher, and immigration much harder than to Canada or even Australia.

In 80s and early 90s Punjabi movies and songs "Inglaand" may have been popular, but since the 2000s "Kaneda" has the goto choice.

Most South Asians you tend to see now are there for educational tourism and will eventually move to Canada or back to India, or are from business/political backgrounds looking for a backup passport should they be prosecuted for crimes (eg. Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Vijay Mallya), though even the US ranks higher for them but they wouldn't be allowed in the US due to background checks or past criminal records (eg. Lalit Modi's attempted stint as a coke dealer at Duke). That said, they definetly send their families to the States. For example, Amit Shah's sisters live in Schaumburg IL and Imran Khan's sis is in the Tri-Valley.