India vows migrant 'crackdown' after US deportation flight

NEW DELHI: 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.

Thousands of unregistered migrants have been arrested across the United States since Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

Trump’s flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling immigration to the United States is estimated to impact 11 million undocumented migrants.

“It is the obligation of all countries to take back their nationals if they are found to be living illegally abroad,” Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told parliament.

Chief of the US Border Patrol Michael W. Banks said the return of “illegal aliens to India” marked “the farthest deportation flight yet using military transport”.

Banks included in social media post on Wednesday a video showing a shuffling line of shackled migrants boarding military aircraft.

New Delhi was “engaging the US government to ensure that the returning deportees are not mistreated in any manner during the flight”, Jaishankar said.

But he noted the “process of deportation is not a new one”, and that the United States had expelled more than 15,000 Indians since 2009, almost half of them between 2019-2024.

“Our focus should be on crackdown — strong crackdown — on the illegal migration industry, while taking steps to ease visas for the legitimate traveller,” Jaishankar said.

India is the world’s fifth-largest economy and enjoys world-beating GDP growth, but hundreds of thousands of its citizens still leave the country each year seeking better opportunities abroad.

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 — whom critics both accuse of authoritarian tendencies — enjoyed warm relations during his first term in the White House from 2017 to 2021.

Indian media have widely reported Modi is likely to visit Washington next week, where he is expected to meet with Trump.