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A US military plane carrying 104 deported people has landed in India as part of the Trump administration’s policy of deploying the armed forces to enforce its trumpeted mass deportation programme.
The migrants, the first to be flown to India by military aircraft, were sent on a C-17 aircraft from San Antonio in Texas to the northern Indian city of Amritsar.
The expulsion came ahead of an anticipated visit to Washington next week by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has previously praised Trump and been lavished in turn with warm words from the US president.
The pair are reported to have discussed immigration in a phone call last week.
Data from the Pew Research Center suggests there are about 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants in the US, making them the third largest group after Mexicans and Salvadorians, although the figures are disputed. The Migration Policy Institute has estimated the number of Indian migrants at roughly half that number.
Although more than 1,000 Indians were deported back last year on commercial flights, the use of much more expensive military planes has symbolic importance by raising the profile and visibility of the expulsions.
Reuters has calculated that using military rather than chartered commercial planes for deportations can cost five times more per migrant.
Trump highlighted the importance of military flights in recent remarks to congressional Republicans. “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,” he said. “We’re respected again, after years of laughing at us like we’re stupid people.”
Military aircraft have already been used for deportation flights to Guatemala, Peru, Honduras and Ecuador. The practice provoked a row last month with Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, who refused to let two military planes land after saying his country’s citizens were not being deported in a dignified manner, amid images of some in handcuffs. The matter was swiftly resolved after Trump threatened to impose tariffs.
Recent Indian media reports suggested there were nearly 18,000 Indian citizens in the US scheduled for deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
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The Indian government has promised to cooperate in the deportations. “As part of India-US migration and mobility cooperation, both sides are engaged in a process to deter illegal migration, while also creating more avenues for legal migration from India to the US. We are keen to continue this cooperation,” Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesperson for India’s external affairs ministry, said recently.
However, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, a minister in Punjab’s state government, where the plane landed on Wednesday, called on Modi’s government to take a tougher stand on Trump’s treatment of Indian migrants.
“The Indian federal government must take this very seriously – after all, there are people from many Indian states who have been deported,” he told the New York Times. “And what is their crime? They may have gone illegally, but it was for their livelihoods. President Trump must give these people another chance and, on humanitarian grounds, do a rethink of his decision.”
Immigration to the US remains sought after among Indian professionals. Many have reportedly flocked to Hindu temples that are said to grant prayers for a US visa in the wake of Trump’s slew of executive orders that make legal immigration more difficult.
