US Military Aircraft With Illegal Indian Migrants Lands At Amritsar Airport (Sreengrab) | X/PTI |
Chandigarh: The US military aircraft carrying 104 illegal immigrants which landed at Sri Guru Ramdas Ji 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.
For the record, it is the first lot of illegal Indian immigrants deported by the US government after President Donald Trump launched a crackdown against illegal immigrants last month.
All of the deportees were sent to their respective places after initial verification of their documents by police as there were, however, speculations that some of the deportees could be having criminal history and in that case they could be arrested at the airport. Family members of only a few of the deportees were reported to have reached the Amritsar airport to receive them,
According to information, most of these illegal immigrants are in their 20s and 30s, while there are also about a dozen of them who are below 16 years of age, including two children who are under five and four years old.
Media reports also said that the four-year-old belongs to Mehsana district of Gujarat and the oldest, a 44-year old, from Mumbai. They included about 24 women.
From among the 30 deportees from Punjab, maximum (six) belonged to Kapurthala district, five from Amritsar, four each from Jalandhar and Patiala, two each from Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana and Nawanshahr (Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar) and one each from Fatehgarh Sahib, Mohali, Sangrur, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran district.
Pertinently, there are a number of people from Punjab and Haryana who have since years been entering the US through illegal means – also called “donkey routes’’ – spending lakhs of rupees in some cases after even selling off their land, who now face deportation from the US.
Notably, the first round of deportation of the illegal immigrants from the US coincides with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington next week on Trump’s invite.
According to media reports, there are said to be about 7.25 lakh illegal immigrants from India living in the US, making it the third largest population of the unauthorised immigrants after Mexico and El Salvador.
Meanwhile, Punjab Non-Resident Indian (NRI) affairs minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal expressed disappointment over the US government’s decision to deport Indians, stating that they should have been given permanent residency given their contribution to the country’s economy. He held that there were Indians who had gone to the US on work permits but the same had later expired, rendering them illegal immigrants.
Stating that he also plans to meet external affairs minister S Jaishankar next week to discuss the issues pertaining to Punjabis living in the US, Dhaliwal appealed to Punjabis not to travel abroad through illegal means.
