An American military aircraft carrying the first batch of 104 illegal Indian migrants, each had the highest number of 30 from Haryana and Gujarat, reached Amritsar in Punjab on Wednesday.
A total of 30 were residents of Delhi. American military C -17 aircraft landed at the International Airport amidst tight security.
Every two people were from Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh, while three were from Maharashtra. The exiles include 25 women and 12 minors, of which the youngest passenger is just four years old.
Forty -five people are under 25 years of age. The flight flying from Texas on Tuesday also took 11 crew members and 45 US authorities overseeing the exile process.
A senior Punjab official said that most of the exile of the state is from Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Taran Taran, Jalandhar, Navanshahar, Patiala, Mohli and Sangrur. Some of them illegally entered the US, while others abolished their visa.
He was sent on the C -17 aircraft that flew from San Antonio, Texas. This was the first round of exile of illegal migrants who coincided with the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of Washington next week.
Donald Trump will be the first visit of PM Modi after taking over as US President for the second time. Foreign Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar had earlier said that New Delhi is open to the “legitimate return” of Indian citizens who illegally living abroad in the US, including the US.
India has expressed readiness to accept these migrants, after verification, Eam Jaishankar told this to US State Secretary Marco Rubio last month.
President Trump told reporters last month, “For the first time in history, we are detecting and loading illegal aliens in military aircraft and flying them back to places where they came.”
Punjab NRI Affairs Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal has expressed disappointment over the US decision to deport Indians, saying that he has contributed to the US economy and should be given permanent residence rather than being deported.
Around 7,25,000 illegal migrants in India live in America, according to the Pue Research Center data, the third largest population of unauthorized migrants after Mexico and Al Salvador.
Many people of Punjab, who are now facing exile, had spent millions of rupees and entered the US through “donkey route” or other illegal means. The US administration has launched a rift against illegal migrants after Trump became President.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
