Amid the Opposition clamour on discussing the deportation of over 100 illegal Indian immigrants by the US, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday said that such actions by the US authorities were “not new”, and revealed the data of the deported Indians in the last 15 years. A total of 15,756 illegal Indian immigrants have been deported to India from the US since 2009, the minister told the Rajya Sabha.
“The process of deportation (by the US) is not new… it has been there for years. This is not a policy applicable to only one country. Our focus should be on the crackdown on illegal migrants…We are engaging with the US to ensure deportees are not mistreated,” the minister said.
According to the data shared by Mr Jaishankar, 2019 saw the most number of Indians being deported by the US (2,042), followed by 1,889 in 2020, the year when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world.
Here is the year-wise data of Indians deported from US:
2009: 734
2010: 799
2011: 597
2012: 530
2013: 515
2014: 591
2015: 708
2016: 1,303
2017: 1,024
2018: 1,180
2019: 2,042
2020: 1,889
2021: 805
2022: 862
2023: 617
2024: 1,368
2025 (till February 5): 104
A US military aircraft carrying 104 illegal Indian immigrants landed in Amritsar on Wednesday, the first such batch of Indians deported by the Donald Trump government as part of a crackdown against illegal immigrants. Of them, 33 each are from Haryana and Gujarat, 30 from Punjab, three each from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and two from Chandigarh.
Many of these migrants had spent a huge amount of money, often obtained through loans, on promises of legal entry into the US. Instead, they endured gruelling, multi-country treks arranged by human traffickers.
As the Indians landed, many horror stories followed about the manner in which they were transported from the US to India. A video shared by the US Border Patrol showed the migrants being handcuffed and their legs shackled as they were forced to do a shuffled walk which is more commonly associated with hardened criminals.
The manner of these deportations triggered a furious response from opposition MPs in India, who have attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the government. The opposition even questioned why the Centre could not send a plane to bring back its citizens in a “humane manner”.
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“We are the fifth-largest economy in the world… when countries like Colombia, which don’t even figure in the top 10, can send an aircraft and bring their citizens back with dignity, what stops our government from sending an aircraft? We don’t have a shortage of these,” Trinamool MP Saket Gokhale said, referring to Colombia and its stand-off with the US on the migrants’ issue.
Mr Jaishankar, responding to these criticisms in Parliament said that the deportations by the US are organised and executed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“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 has been effective since 2012. I repeat, that is effective from 2012 and provides for the use of restraints. However, we have been informed by ICE that women and children are not restrained. Further, the needs of deportees including during transit, related to food and other necessities, including possible medical emergencies are attended to. During toilet breaks, deportees are temporarily unrestrained if needed in that regard,” he said.
