India’s foreign minister threatened a “strong crackdown” on illegal migration on Thursday, a day after a US military airplane flew back 104 migrants as part of President Donald Trump’s overhaul of immigration.
Since Trump’s inauguration on January 20 there have been countless unregistered immigrant arrests throughout the country.
11 million undocumented immigrants are thought to be the target of Trump’s string of executive actions designed to overhaul immigration to the US.
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told the parliament, “It is the responsibility of all nations to take back their citizens if it is discovered that they are living illegally abroad.
The return of “illegal aliens to India” was “the farthest deportation flight yet using military transport,” according to US Border Patrol Chief Michael W. Banks.
Banks posted a video of a swarm of shackled migrants boarding military aircraft on Wednesday.
According to Jaishankar, New Delhi was “engaging the US government to make sure that the returning deportees are not treated unfairly on the flight.”
He did point out that the deportation process is not new, and that almost half of Indians were expelled in the US between 2019 and 2024.
“We should concentrate on a strong crackdown on the illegal immigration industry while reducing the number of visas granted to legitimate travelers,” Jaishankar said.
India’s fifth-largest economy has a world-leading GDP growth, but hundreds of thousands of its citizens leave each year in search of better opportunities abroad.
The United States continues to be the preferred destination despite its diverse diaspora.
New Delhi is pressing for a more liberal US visa regime for India’s highly skilled pool of engineers, doctors, and other experts.
Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, both of whom critics have accused of harboring authoritarian tendencies, had friendly relations during his first year in office, which lasted from 2017 to 2021.
Modi is expected to meet with Trump in Washington the following week, according to reports in Indian media.
Source: Channels TV
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