US Military Aircraft With Illegal Indian Migrants Lands At Amritsar Airport (Sreengrab) | X/PTI |
Chandigarh: The first lot of illegal migrants deported by the US government, which landed in Amritsar Wednesday afternoon, has a saga of their shattered dreams and how a crushing agony and debt now stare at them.
The US military aircraft carrying 104 illegal immigrants which landed at Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International airport in Amritsar Wednesday around 2 pm, included 30 of them from Punjab, 33 each from Haryana and Gujarat, 3 each from UP and Maharashtra and 2 from Chandigarh.
They recount how their hope for a bright future pushed them to agree to a hazardous “donkey route’’ (illegal passage to enter a country), after they were duped by travel agents who had promised them a legal and safe passage to the US by taking lakhs of rupees.
Harvinder Singh of Tahli village in district Hoshiarpur, who comes from a humble background, who had left home about eight months ago, had crossed the US-Mexico border illegally last month but was caught and sent to a detention camp in the US.
His family members say Singh was promised a valid visa by an agent who took Rs 42 lakh from them. Quoting family members, media reports further said the family who hoped to have a better future for its children, is now devastated, left with deep distress and a huge debt.
The family members of Sukhpal, also from humble background and from Hoshiarpur, narrate their woes and have a similar story to tell. With their deportation, their families’ hopes of some earnings have been dashed.
Like others, the family members of Mandeep Singh, 25, of a Tarn Taran village, who run a shop of sanitary wares, say that Singh had gone to Italy two years ago and they do not know how he reached the US. Stating that they did not want to speak on his deportation, they, however, said that the saving of the family’s whole life had been spent in sending him abroad and their lives have been ruined.
In Haryana too, like other deportees, the family of Gagandeep Singh, 24, a resident of village Digoh, district Fatehabad, has been struck by a deep distress by his deportation; inconsolable by the devastating turn of events, his family members recall how they had sold their land to send him to UK on study visa in 2022.
However, faced with lack of part-time jobs in the UK, he failed to pay his university fees and fell prey to a visa agent who made him illegally enter the US in January, 2025 when he was caught.
Ajay, a resident of Chuharpur village in Jind district, has a similar story of how his family had sent him to US by spending Rs 40 lakh for a brighter future, but he was caught.
