Will US Expel Lakhs of Indians? Modi-Trump Meeting This Month Holds Answer! News24 –

Will Donald Trump’s administration deport hundreds of thousands of Indians living in the US illegally? This question popped up after a US military aircraft carrying more than 100 deported Indian immigrants landed in Amritsar Wednesday. US Air Force’s Globemaster C-17 aircraft carrying Indians took off from the San Antonio air base situated in Texas.

The Punjab government welcomed the immigrants in a friendly manner and set up counters to assist them.

Expressing disappointment over the US administration’s action,
AAP-led Punjab government’s NRI Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said these individuals had contributed to the US economy.

He also said that Washington should have granted them permanent residency instead of deporting them to India.

Earlier Too US Deported Indians

However, this is not the first time that the US has deported illegal immigrants. Joe Biden’s administration deported more than 1,100 Indians in September 2024.

According to Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, US Customs and Border Protection officials have detained about 170,000 Indian migrants attempting to cross the border illegally from either Canada or Mexico.

Reacting to the incident, Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said, “Looking at the pictures of Indians getting handcuffed and humiliated while being deported from the US saddens me as an Indian.”

Will Trump, Modi Discuss Illegal Immigration?

The US has deported these immigrants days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to the US, where he is most likely to meet Donald Trump and discuss bilateral issues, including, illegal immigrants.

If media reports are to be believed, more than 20,000 Indians have been identified for deportation and many of them have been kept in custody.

In his first meeting with Indian counterpart S Jaishankar last month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised the issue of illegal Indian immigrants and informed him in the most unequivocal terms that they would be deported.

Jaishankar agreed to take illegal immigrants back after verification.

Delivering the inaugural speech immediately after taking oath on January 20, Donald Trump declared an emergency in the areas bordering with Mexico announcing to send all immigrants, millions in number, to their respective countries.

Sending illegal immigrants back was one of Trump’s electoral planks, he slammed his rival and then Vice President Kamala Harris for the influx of immigrants and promised to send all of them back, come what may.

US Identifies 1.45 Million Illegal Immigrants

According to the data provided by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in November 2024, about 17,940 Indians were among the 1.45 million people slated to be deported from the US.

With a population of more than 5.1 million or 1.47% of the total US population, Indian Americans are the second largest South Asian community after the Chinese.

The ‘Donkey’ Route

If media reports are to be believed, thousands of Indians, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat take the “donkey” route every year to somehow reach the US.

The “doneky” route is an open secret in India as human traffickers take Indians to Dubai and send them to Venezuela on a tourist visa.

The tortuous, dangerous and pathetic “donkey” route begins from there as these people are smuggled to Mexico via Panama, Columbia, Costarica, and Nicaragua.

After reaching Mexico, either they sneak into the US illegally or seek asylum, but most of them end up being caught by the ICE authorities.

After spending months in US custody, they are deported back to India.

Indians Living Illegally In US

Besides, some Indians go to the US legally on a visa but try to go underground when their visa expires. Most of them take illegal blue-collar and menial jobs, keep on moving on from one place to another and avoid arrest.

Also, thousands of Indians go to the US on a visa, apply for permanent residency and keep on waiting for years. They live with the hope that their children born in the US will get citizenship.

With an executive order issued on his first working day as the US President, Donald Trump abolished the law of automatic citizenship to people born on US soil.

The US may deport all kinds of illegal immigrants and Indians may be the worst sufferers.