Amritsar/New Delhi: Another US military aircraft carrying a third batch of 112 undocumented Indians who were deported from the US arrived in Amritsar on Sunday night.
The US Air Force C-17 Globemaster aircraft touched down at Amritsar International Airport around 10 pm, according to reports.
This is the third such batch of Indians deported from the US in the last 10 days as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Of the 112 deported Indians, 44 are from Haryana, 33 from Gujarat, 31 from Punjab, two from Uttar Pradesh, and one each from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, reports said.
Earlier, on Saturday night, a second US military flight carrying 116 deported Indians landed at Amritsar airport.
Of the 116 deportees, 65 were from Punjab, 33 from Haryana, eight from Gujarat, and two each from Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, with one each from Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
According to sources, the women were not shackled. However, the men were brought in shackles, as per the US standard operating procedure with regard to deportation of illegal immigrants.
On February 13, during the press conference with President Donald Trump in Washington DC, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when asked about the issue of illegal migration of Indians, had said the issue does not just concern India but is a global issue.
“We are of the view that people who illegally enter other countries, those people do not have any legal basis to live there.
“With regard to India and the US we have always said that the Indians who are verified to be Indian nationals, if they are found to be living illegally, we are ready to accept them back.
“But the issue does not stop there. These are people from ordinary families, and are shown big dreams and are led astray and brought here.
“And that is why we should wage war on the whole ecosystem of human trafficking and uproot it totally. And I have faith that President Trump will support India in ending this entire ecosystem,” the PM said.
On February 6, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had told Parliament that the deportation of Indians from the US was done “under standard deportation procedure which provides for the use of restraints”, following uproar over the deportation of the first batch of 104 Indians bound in shackles on a US aircraft.
EAM told the Rajya Sabha that the deportation is done by the US Immigration and Customs Department, and the process has been effective from 2012.
“The process of deportation is not a new one, I repeat not a new one, and has been ongoing for several years,” he said, and cited details of deportation from the United States since 2009.
“The deportations by the US are organized and executed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, authorities. The standard operating procedure for deportation by aircraft used by ICE that is effective from 2012, provides for the use of restraints,” he told Parliament
