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US military plane carrying 104 Indian deportees lands in Amritsar

US deports 205 Indians via military aircraft amid Trump’s immigration crackdown, a week before PM Modi’s US visit.

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A US military aircraft carrying the first batch of 104 illegal Indian immigrants, landed at Sri Guru Ram Dass Jee International Airport, Amritsar in the afternoon hours on 5 February 2025, amid tight security.

The highest number of deportees, 33 each, are from the Indian states of Haryana and Gujarat, and a total of 30 deportees are residents of Punjab. Three of them are from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, while two are from Chandigarh. Deportees include 25 women and 12 minors, with the youngest passenger being just four years old. Forty-eight people are below the age of 25.

The flight, which took off from San Antonio, Texas on 4 Feb, also carried 11 crew members and 45 US officials overseeing the deportation process.

National and state intelligence agencies interrogated each deportee inside the airport terminal building to determine whether they had any criminal histories. Although there has been no official announcement as of yet, PTI stated that they are anticipated to be let to return home after verification and background checks.

The deportation process is a component of a larger immigration crackdown in the United States during the second term of President Donald Trump. Mass deportations have resulted from Trump’s escalation of border control tactics since taking office on 20 January. Many of the people being deported had come to the US illegally, frequently after shelling out large sums of money to gain entry.

In December, Trump had declared, “I want them out, and the countries have to take them back.” Emphasising on swiftly deporting illegal immigrants rather than holding them and allowing them to file an appeal, he said, “I don’t want them to spend the next 20 years in camp. ”

(Source: X)

According to reports, India is attempting to preserve positive diplomatic ties with the Trump administration in the face of growing US pressure on immigration laws. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a number of trade and policy concessions to the White House, according to Bloomberg.

Because New Delhi doesn’t want to make illegal immigration a point of contention with Washington, it has said that it is willing to take back Indians living in the US without papers, provided their nationality is confirmed.

A report in The Gaurdian states the Indian government is collaborating with the US authorities to identify undocumented Indian immigrants for deportation in order to demonstrate a willingness to work closely with the new Trump administration and protect legal immigration visas such as H-1B visas for skilled workers and student visas for Indian citizens. Indians deported from US

“India does not want to focus on the issue of illegal migrants being deported. The government’s interest is in ensuring that legal migration channels to the U.S. for Indian nationals are not restricted by the Trump administration,” Manoj Joshi, a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, said to Voice of America.

Next week, Modi is scheduled to visit Washington, where he is anticipated to discuss immigration-related issues.

(Source: X)

The US Department of Homeland Security predicted last year that there were approximately 220,000 undocumented Indian migrants living in the United States as of 2022, however official figures are yet unknown. According to earlier reports, India had consented to take back some 18,000 of these people.

In October 2024, Homeland Security (DHS) organised a charter deportation flight to India, through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to repatriate Indian nationals who did not have the legal right to be in the United States. Data from the US government shows that 519 Indian nationals were deported to India between November 2023 and October 2024. Both commercial and charter aircraft were used to carry out these deportations.

Last week, President Donald Trump remarked after speaking with Modi on the phone, that the Indian Prime Minister Modi promised him that the nation would “do what’s right” by repatriating illegal immigrants.

President Trump has pushed federal and local agencies to increase detentions and deportations as part of his rigorous immigration enforcement efforts since taking office again. He has also increased deportation flights and sent military personnel to border areas.

However, India’s Ministry of External Affairs has not yet released an official comment regarding the most recent deportation flight. However, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal in a media briefing on 31 Jan in New Delhi made it clear that India and the United States are working to discourage illegal migration, and “cooperation between India and the U.S. is strong and effective in this domain.”  Indians deported from US

Nonetheless, the problem continues to be a major diplomatic and humanitarian concern because thousands of undocumented Indian people are still in the US.

Read More: View from America: Perspectives on Trump’s (re-) election

Torsha Sen
Torsha Sen
A seasoned journalist who observes passage of time and uses tenses that contain simple past, continuous present, and a future perfect to weave stories.

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