The visuals of illegal Indian migrants shackled in chains, handcuffed, and sent by US government in a military plane, are shocking and bound to cause anger in the mind of every Indian citizen. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has told Parliament that India “was engaging with the US” to ensure that Indian deportees are not mistreated during flights.
The minister said, shackling and handcuffing deportees was part of “the SOP (standard operating procedure) for deportation used by the American Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)” and this has been going on since 2012. He reeled out year-wise statistics to say that 14,877 illegal Indian migrants were deported by the US since 2009.
Jaishankar said, the core issue relates to gangs of “agents” operating to carry out illegal migration of Indians to the US. He assured that the government would nab such unscrupulous agents based on information received from the deportees.
There is no doubt that the manner in which illegal Indian migrants were sent by the US in a military plane was inhuman. It is a fact that these Indian nationals had entered the US illegally . It is the right of the US government to deport “illegal aliens”, but no country has the right to behave in such an inhuman manner.
America had been deporting illegal Indian migrants in the past too. For the American government, handcuffing and shackling such illegal migrants is part of its “standard operating procedure”. This has been going on since last 16 years, but no previous governments in India did anything to stop such inhuman treatment.
The images of Indians shackled and handcuffed in an American military plane are indeed sad and unfortunate. Most of these Indians have no past criminal records. They were cheated by so-called “agents” who took hefty sums of money from them.
India TV reporters spoke to several such deportees. Most of them narrated their harrowing experiences. Daler Singh from Amritsar said, he had sold his farm and had taken loans from relatives to give Rs 40 lakhs to an agent, who first sent him to Europe, and there to Brazil. Finally he was taken through Central America, from Panama to Tijuana in Mexico. From there, he was illegally pushed into San Diego, California, where he was caught and put in a detention camp for 20 days, before being deported.
Akashdeep from Atari, Amritsar, was sent by his father after selling land, tractor and cattle. He was first taken to Dubai, and from there the agents tried to send him by “donkey route” from Mexico to the US.
Harvinder Singh from Hoshiarpur took Rs 42 lakhs as loan and tried to enter the US from Mexico, but was caught by US border patrol team.
Out of the 104 deportees, 33 are from Haryana. Nine youths from a single village Gharaunda in Karnal district took off for the US 10 months ago. Two of them died en route, while the remaining seven were caught on January 26 on the US border.
These illegal migrants are not criminals. They were lured by “agents” who promised them to take them to the US. They sold their properties, took hefty loans to pay the agents. Now their hopes lie in shambles.
It is good that the government has admitted that there are gangs active in illegal migration. S. Jaishankar has promised that the government would try to nab these gangs. This is necessary so that no other Indians get duped by such gangs in a similar manner.
The only lesson one can draw is that Indian nations should not take the illegal migration route, and follow proper visa procedures for going abroad.