New Delhi: A United States military aircraft carrying 205 illegal Indian migrants departed from Texas will land at the Sri Guru Ram Das Ji International Airport in Punjab’s Amritsar on Wednesday morning, sources told The Free Press Journal. The C-17 aircraft departed on Monday night (local time).
However, officials at the Amritsar airport refused to comment on the development. When contacted, an official at the airport told FPJ, ” We don’t have any confirmation in this regard.”
Notably, US President Donald Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation in American history as part of his strict immigration policies targeting approximately 11 million undocumented migrants.
“For the first time in history, we are locating and loading illegal aliens into military aircraft and flying them back to the places from which they came,” Trump told reporters last month.
As per reports, the US has plans to deport over 5,000 migrants from El Paso, Texas and San Diego and California. The Trump administration launched these military deportation flights last week under his emergency declaration on immigration, with six planeloads of migrants already sent to Latin America.
Meanwhile, Colombia refused to allow two US military aircraft to land and instead deployed its own planes to repatriate its citizens.
Last month, reports surfaced that India would take back its citizens living illegally in the United States. Notably, during the election campaign, Trump had expressed his intentions to launch a crackdown on illegal migrants.
After a call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after taking charge as the US President, Trump had stated that Modi “will do what’s right” in taking back illegal Indian immigrants from the US. According to Bloomberg News, around 18,000 Indians have been identified as undocumented migrants in the country.
On the first day after assuming office, Trump signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship. Notably, the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution grants citizenship to all individuals born in the country.
Trump also shut down, the CBP One app launched by the Biden administration. The mobile app, launched the US Customs and Border Protection, provided around a million illegal immigrants and asylum seekers with legal status, Notably, the app was launched in October 2020 with the aim to help commercial trucking companies schedule cargo inspections at border crossings.
