'Prime Minister Modi should sit with Trump and find a solution to this issue.'
A US military aircraft carrying 104 illegal immigrants hailing from various states landed in Amritsar on Wednesday, February 5, 2025, the first such batch of Indians deported by the Trump government as part of a crackdown it resolved to carry out when it was sworn in last month.
Of the deportees, 33 each are from Haryana and Gujarat, 30 from Punjab, three each from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and two from Chandigarh, sources said.
Nineteen women and 13 minors, including a four-year-old boy and two girls aged five and seven years, were among the deportees, they said.
The US air force C-17 Globemaster aircraft landed at Amritsar airport at 1:55 pm. The US action came just days before Prime Minister Narendra D Modi's visit to Washington, DC to hold wide-ranging talks with President Donald J Trump.
The deportees were questioned inside the airport terminal building by different government agencies, including the Punjab police and various state and central intelligence agencies, to check if they have any criminal record.
Around 6:45 pm, the deportees from Punjab were taken to their respective hometowns in police vehicles after the completion of all formalities. Similarly, the illegal immigrants from Haryana were taken by the state police to their native places, the sources said.
They also said arrangements were made by the state governments concerned to take the deportees to their native places.
There was heavy barricading outside the airport and police personnel were deployed in large numbers.
Except for an Amritsar-based man, who came to receive his grandson, none of the family members of the deportees showed up at the airport. He, however, refused to talk to reporters at the airport and seemed miffed by the volley of questions.
Earlier, media reports claimed that the US military plane was carrying 205 illegal immigrants.
Among the illegal immigrants hailing from Punjab, six were from Kapurthala, five from Amritsar, four each from Patiala and Jalandhar, two each from Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana, Shaheed Bhagat Singh (SBS) Nagar and one each was from Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran, Sangrur, SAS Nagar and Fatehgarh Sahib, the sources said.
Jaspal Singh (36), who was among the deportees, revealed they were handcuffed and their legs were chained and those were taken off only at the Amritsar airport.
Singh, who hails from Hardorwal village in Gurdaspur district, said he was captured by the US Border Patrol after he crossed the US border on January 24.
After reaching his hometown in the evening, Singh said he was defrauded by a travel agent, who had promised him that he would be sent to the US legally.
"I had asked the agent to send me after getting a proper US visa. But he deceived me," he said.
Singh said the deal with the agent was finalised at Rs 30 lakh.
He left home for the US in July last year and reached that country only in January.
Singh said he was arrested by the US Border Patrol, kept there for 11 days and then sent back.
He said initially, they did not know where they were being taken. "We thought we were being taken to another camp. Then a police officer told us that we were being taken to India. We were handcuffed and our legs were chained. The handcuffs and chains were taken off at Amritsar airport," he said.
Replying to a reporter's question, Singh said they were shattered when they got to know that they would be deported. "A huge sum was spent. The money was borrowed," he said.
Family members of the other illegal immigrants from Punjab also said they took huge loans to send these people to the United States, hoping for a bright future, but now feel that it is impossible to break free from the crushing debt.
They alleged that the travel agents adopted unfair means to facilitate these people's travel to the US without their knowledge. They now seek strict action against those agents.
Hours after the US military aircraft landed at the airport, Punjab NRI Affairs m=Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention, requesting him to speak to his "friend" Trump regarding the deportation of Indians.
Dhaliwal also spoke to some of the deportees hailing from Punjab at the airport.
Addressing the media, the minister said a total of 104 Indians have been deported from the US and of them, 30 are from Punjab. "It was a long flight. All are healthy and fine, they had their meal," he said.
"The paperwork of the deportees hailing from Punjab was done first. Thereafter, the immigration process of those from Haryana, Gujarat and other states will be carried out," the minister added.
Describing the deportation of Indians from the US as a "very serious" issue, Dhaliwal said, "We all know that Prime Minister Modi used to say that 'Trump is my friend'. He even campaigned for Trump during the 2019 US election. These are international issues and can be discussed and resolved at that level."
"I request Prime Minister Modi that the sword of deportation and jail is hanging on the heads of many Indians and he should hold their hands. He should sit with Trump and find a solution to this issue," he said.
Senior Punjab Bharatiya Janata Party leader Harjit Singh Grewal asked Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to make arrangements for the resettlement and employment of those from the state who have been deported by the US government.
He also demanded strict action against the travel agents who sent these people to the US through the 'donkey route' and other illegal means by taking lakhs of rupees from them.
The Congress expressed sadness over 'pictures of Indians getting handcuffed and humiliated' while being deported from the US and recalled that America had to express regret over the treatment meted out to Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in 2013 after the then UPA government retaliated sharply.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said on Tuesday that the media kerfuffle over the deportation of illegal Indian migrants from the US obscures a few facts.
'This is not the first such planeload, nor is it directly related to the ascent of @realDonaldTrump. There were 1,100 Indians deported in the previous fiscal year (ending September 2024), under Biden, not Trump. As of 2022, there were 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US -- the third-largest group, outnumbered only by nationals of Mexico and El Salvador,' Tharoor said in a post on X.
'Since October 2020, US Customs and Border Protection officials have detained nearly 170,000 Indian migrants attempting to cross the border illegally from either Canada or Mexico. They are all subject to deportation,' Tharoor added.
After Trump assumed office as the US president last month, the country's law enforcement agencies have launched a crackdown against illegal immigrants.
Many Indians, who entered the US through the 'donkey route' or other illegal means by spending lakhs of rupees, are now facing deportation.
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