US begins deporting Indian migrants

A United States military flight carrying illegal migrants departed for India on Monday as the Donald Trump administration intensifies its crackdown on undocumented immigrants, an official stated, according to news agency Reuters. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the C-17 aircraft had departed for India with migrants aboard but would not arrive for at least 24 hours.Approximately 725,000 illegal immigrants from India live in the US, making it the third-largest population of unauthorised immigrants after Mexico and El Salvador, according to data from the Pew Research Centre.
Trump had pledged to carry out the largest deportation in American history, and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has compiled an initial list of nearly 18,000 undocumented Indian nationals, among 1.5 million individuals marked for deportation. However, it was not immediately clear how many were aboard the departing flight.
The deportation to India will be the first since the return of US President Donald Trump to the White House. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have raised concerns around illegal immigration by Indians into the US during their respective conversations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. The Ministry of External Affairs had termed the deportations as an outcome of “regular consular dialogue and arrangement” with the US. The MEA spokesperson also said that it continues to hold “regular consular dialogue” and make necessary “arrangements” on immigration and mobility of people between the two countries.