As Donald Trump took office as President of the United States on January 20, he immediately moved to fulfil his promise of deporting illegal Indian and other immigrants back to their countries. India, without any pushback amid Trump’s threats to sanction those who turn down the “illegal aliens,” welcomed the decision.
President Trump announced the crackdown last month, stating, “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.”
However, when the first flight of 104 illegal immigrants landed in Amritsar on Wednesday, the Opposition and the general public were unhappy over the treatment of the deportees.
A video of the alleged illegal Indian immigrants being deported, and cuffed throughout the journey on a US military flight, was shared by the US authorities. The deportees claimed that they were unshackled only after landing in Amritsar.
As the video stirred a row within the country and internationally, the US claimed that it was protocol. Leaders of the Opposition in India have slammed the Union government for remaining silent over the mistreatment.
The Opposition further disrupted the Parliament session and demanded answers stating that this treatment by the US of illegal immigrants was disrespectful and an insult to their dignity, finally forcing the minister of external affairs S Jaishankar to deliver a statement.
“…To send them like this abruptly in a military aircraft and in handcuffs is an insult to India, it’s an insult to the dignity of Indians and we should certainly protest,” said Congress Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor, on the video of the deportation of the alleged illegal Indian immigrants.
He also asserted that the government needed to issue a message to the US, making it clear that it had no right to do this in such an “insulting manner”.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said, “We are protesting the way in which this was done. They have every legal right to deport people who are illegally in their country and we, if they are proven to be Indians, have an obligation to receive them.”
The former Union minister of state for external affairs recalled how Colombia had refused to accept suspected immigrants of Colombian origin under similar circumstances and officially protested when people were sent back in handcuffs.
“You send people in a civilian aircraft, you send them normally, we will accept them if they are our citizens but you can’t do this,” Tharoor told reporters outside Parliament.
“The Modi government needs to issue a message, making it very clear that we accept the right of Americans to send illegal people away but they have no right to do it in such an insulting manner,” he said.
“It is a humiliation that we don’t have to witness it here in India,” he added.
The government should take action so that this is not repeated and demand an explanation for this “atrocious behaviour”, Tharoor said.
Aside from this, MPs of the Opposition parties including Lok Sabha LoP and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav held a protest outside the Parliament over the issue of deportation of alleged illegal Indian immigrants from the US.
Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal, SP MP Dharmendra Yadav, Congress MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla and a few other leaders can be seen being handcuffed to mark their protest alleging that Indian immigrants were subjected to inhuman treatment while being deported from the US.
The Left parties on Thursday condemned the alleged treatment of Indians deported from the US and slammed the Union government over it. Their MPs held a protest against the deportation of Indians who they said were treated “inhumanely”.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the organisations affiliated with it condemned the incident. In a statement issued here, the CPI(M) said the treatment given to Indians who were deported is “unacceptable”.
The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) also condemned the “atrocious” treatment and demanded immediate action from the Indian government to prevent such incidents.
A day after a US military aircraft carrying 104 deported illegal Indian immigrants landed in Punjab, a spokesperson at the US embassy in New Delhi said “enforcing our nation’s immigration laws” is critically important to the national security and public safety of the United States.
The C-17 Globemaster aircraft of the US Air Force landed at the Amritsar airport at 1.55 pm on Wednesday.
In response to queries from some reporters, the official only said, “I can share that enforcing our nation’s immigration laws is critically important to the national security and public safety of the United States. It is the policy of the United States to faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens.”
After persistent protests by the Opposition, external affairs minister S Jaishankar delivered a statement in the upper house of the Parliament. However, his statement had little to do with the treatment of Indians and more on the lines of deportation of illegal immigrants over the years, backing the US’ treatment of the Indian nationals citing “protocol”.
As many as 15,668 illegal Indian immigrants have been deported to India from the US since 2009, informed the Rajya Sabha.
Jaishankar said deportations by the US are organised and executed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities and “the standard operating procedure for deportations by aircraft used by ICE that is effective from 2012, provides for the use of restraints”.
“However, we have been informed by ICE that women and children are not restrained.
Brazil condemned the US after dozens of deportees arrived in handcuffs, with Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski calling it a “blatant disrespect” of their fundamental rights. President Lula ordered the Brazilian Air Force to transport the deportees to their final destination with dignity.
Colombia, under President Gustavo Petro, initially refused to receive US military cargo planes carrying deportees but later agreed while sending Colombian planes to bring them back.
