Indian Deportees From US Stare at Stark Future

 “My turban was forcefully removed and was thrown into a dustbin in the detention centre. It was a horrible experience which will haunt me for the rest of my life,” says a restless Jatinder Singh, who was deported from the United States in a military aircraft on February 16.

His ‘American dream’ turned into a nightmare. With hopes of building a better future in the US and earning money to feed his family back in Amritsar, Punjab, he left India in September 2024 and ventured out on a journey, unaware of what the future holds for him.

In a two-month long strenuous journey, fraught with danger, Singh travelled through forests, roads and seas before he managed to cross the US-Mexico border. Little did he know that his dreams will be short-lived. He was arrested by the American cops in November as soon as he entered the US illegally.

Singh spent two weeks in a detention camp before eventually being deported with 111 other Indians who had entered America illegally. He said he was handcuffed all through the 36-hour journey back to India. “It was humiliating. It felt as if I’d committed a murder. I’m not a criminal. I went there in search of a job, to earn and sustain my family,” he says.

Meanwhile, what goes unnoticed is the backstory of Singh’s journey to the US, which was a testing time for his family. “An agent who was to facilitate my journey had demanded Rs. 50 lakh. My family sold our ancestral land. My sister, who’s married, sold her jewellery. We broke our bank savings and borrowed some money. We did everything we could to raise the amount that was needed for my trip,” says Singh, adding that the family is now in debt and he’s now without a job.

Jatinder Singh’s story is not uncommon. The flight that brought him home carried 43 other deportees from Haryana, 33 from Gujarat, 31 from Punjab, two from Uttar Pradesh, and one each from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

Individual accounts reported in the media suggest that most of them had paid large sums to agents, believing they could secure a future in the US. However, under the Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, they found themselves in a state of uncertainty — detained and deported with defeated dreams and families drowned in debt.

Yashpal Singh, 26, a resident of Patti town in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district, had an even more arduous and treacherous journey. It took him 18 months to finally cross the US border through Latin America, only to be detained and deported on the same flight as Jatinder Singh. On his way to the US, he claims he was held hostage and beaten by smugglers.

Yashpal Singh claims that he paid Rs. 45 lakh to a travel agent who promised to ferry him to the US “comfortably”. He says he made additional payments at different stages of the journey amounting to a few lakhs altogether. “My family is in debt. The agent kept demanding more money and we had no choice but to borrow from banks and relatives to pay him,” he says.

Yashpal says he felt insulted about how he was treated in America and back home. “I reached at my doorstep with Punjab Police that escorted me. I’m not a criminal. I went to earn, not to steal or commit a crime. I feel insulted the way I was treated in America and the way I’m being treated now in my home country,” he adds.

The US has identified around 18,000 undocumented Indian migrants to be sent back home. With immigration in top focus, US President Trump’s administration has ramped up deportations, targeting undocumented immigrants with aggressive measures. It’s worth noting that the Republicans fought the 2024 Presidential polls with the issue of illegal immigrants as its key agenda, among others.

The US Department of Homeland Security has implemented new policies requiring undocumented individuals over 14 years old to register, provide fingerprints, and disclose their addresses. These steps are part of a broader effort to curb illegal immigration.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was on a visit to the US, spoke on this issue during a rare press conference with Trump in Washington. Modi said, “Those who stay in other countries illegally have no legal right to be there. If they are verified to be Indian citizens, India is ready to take them back.” The Prime Minister acknowledged that many of these individuals were misled by human traffickers and emphasised the need for lawful migration.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told Parliament that Indian deportations from the US have been happening for many years now. He said deportations follow legal procedures and that the Indian government was in discussions with its American counterpart to ensure deportees are treated with dignity. But for those like Jatinder, who returned in chains, dignity is precisely what they feel was lost.

Another deportee named Jatinder Singh (23), who hails from Punjab’s Bandala village, landed in India on February 15, along with 117 other illegal immigrants. His family had placed their hopes on him, believing he would secure a better future, live a quality life and earn well in America, but life had other plans. His father said he had gone to Delhi for some legal work and claimed that Jatinder was a baptised Sikh and was forced to eat non-vegetarian food when he was in detention, an act that had deeply disturbed him.

Punjab Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Bhagwant Mann launched a blistering attack on the Modi government over deportation flights landing in the state’s capital city of Amritsar. Speaking in the Assembly, he questioned that if the plane carrying the ousted Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina could land at Hindon airport, why couldn’t the planes with the deportees land there or in any other part of the country. Mann alleged it was a move by the Centre to defame Punjab and Punjabis.

Punjab’s NRI (non-resident Indian) Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal expressed disappointment over the move to deport Indians, saying they had contributed to the US economy and should have been granted permanent residency instead of being deported.

A recent research paper published by Johns Hopkins University has shown a sharp spike in asylum seekers in the US from India after 2016, with Punjabi speakers making up the majority. The paper found that between October 2001 and November 2022, 66% of those who sought asylum in the US from India were Punjabi speakers. Nearly 14% of them were Hindi speakers, 8% were English speakers, and 7% were Gujarati speakers.

India’s prime opposition party has also slammed the Modi government over these developments. Congress’ national spokesperson, Advocate Mahima Singh, termed the deportations a blot on India’s foreign policy. “From deportees being caged and forcibly fed beef to being compelled to remove turbans, a servile External Affairs Minister defending the American excesses and an extremely weak Prime Minister viciously sold out to hollow plaudits, the recent series of exchanges between India and America is an unprecedented blot on our diplomacy and foreign policy,” she said, asking, “why are record numbers of Indians resorting to illegally migrating to America?”

It is important to note that the number of Indians attempting to enter America illegally has surged in the recent past. A decade ago, US border authorities stopped not more than 1,500 Indian illegal migrants. This figure has seen a surge with the figure rising sharply to 96,917 in 2023 and 90,415 in 2024. A data that has more to do with visa rule violation suggests that around 17,000 Indians overstay in the US every year.

While this latest wave of deportations under Trump 2.0 has grabbed headlines and drawn comments from all quarters, it’s important to take a back seat and look at what the data says amid all the rhetoric and political blame game. Unauthorised immigrants make up only 3% of the US population. Pew Research Center and Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) estimate some 700,000 undocumented Indians living in America as of 2022, making them the third-largest group after Mexico and El Salvador.

On the contrary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says only 220,000 unauthorised Indians reside in the US as of 2022. The DHS also estimated that their population has dropped significantly by 60% from its 2016 peak. With no uniformity in the data, the number of undocumented Indians residing in the US is contested.

Former diplomat Dilip V. Sinha argued that the deportees have violated the laws of both countries as also of the countries they have travelled through. “The U.S. is entitled to deport them according to its laws. India is entitled to raise human rights concerns but that is about all. The Indian government’s failure lies in not being able to break the human trafficking gangs and agents who are conning people. Not that it would be easy given the gullibility of our people and their desperation to migrate,” he told the authors of this article.

Jaishankar informed the Rajya Sabha on February 6 that a total of 15,564 Indian nationals had been deported from the US since 2009. While the Barack Obama administration deported 5,777 Indians between 2009 and 2016, Trump under his first tenure as President deported 6,135 Indians in total between 2017 and 2021. When Joe Biden assumed the Oval Office with Indian-origin Kamala Harris as his deputy, a total of 3,652 Indians were deported between 2021 and 2024.

These numbers suggest that while deportations were consistent under all administrations, be it the rule of the Democrats or the Republicans, Trump’s crackdown against illegal immigrants has resulted in more upheaval and deportations. With his return to the White House, the trend appears to be escalating again.

Harjit Singh, another deportee from Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, refused to speak, saying he was depressed after what had transpired. He went to the US illegally via the jungles of Panama with his cousin Harjot Singh.

Meanwhile, the police and investigative agencies in India have swung into action. The Amritsar police have reportedly registered an FIR (first information report) against an immigration agent operating from Delhi. The agent named Pardeep Kumar was booked on the basis of a complaint given to the cops by deportee Jatinder Singh of Bandala. In the complaint, he alleged that the agent promised him to send to the US legally and had taken Rs. 50 lakh from him for the same.

A total of 3,042 illegal immigration agents have been identified in India till June 2024, with the highest number of agents in Andhra Pradesh, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. In the past four years, 4,361 complaints have been lodged against illegal agents for luring Indians with false recruitment offers.

USBP and partners successfully returned illegal aliens to India, marking the farthest deportation flight yet using military transport. This mission underscores our commitment to enforcing immigration laws and ensuring swift removals.

If you cross illegally, you will be removed. pic.twitter.com/WW4OWYzWOf

— Chief Michael W. Banks (@USBPChief) February 5, 2025

For many of these deportees, the future looks bleak and gloomy. Their families have been financially broken and emotionally devastated. Many fear they will never be able to recover from the debt crisis they are stuck in while chasing their American dream. “I thought I would build a future in the US. Now, I don’t even know how to rebuild and restart my life here,” says a saddened Jatinder, who now has his turban back on his head, a symbol of pride for him which was once thrown into the dustbin during his detention days.

The fourth deportation flight landed in India on February 23 with 12 people on board. They are believed to be among the 299 illegal migrants deported by the US to Panama a few days ago.

As India gears up to receive more such flights, the larger question remains: What is driving so many young Indians to risk their lives, travel for months through challenging and obstacle-ridden routes, and pledge their entire financial resources? And what are the governments doing against the immigration agents who ruin the lives of people full of aspirations on false pretense and extort their hard-earned money? And should immigration policies focus only on legalities and rules, or should they also take into account the human cost behind these deportations?

This article was also published on NewsClick and can be read here.