This Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) revealed that the United States has deported 1,563 Indian nationals since January 20 this year, the day Donald Trump assumed office as President for a second term.
Thousands Of Indians Deported From US
It appears that most of these deportees have been sent back on commercial flights.
Moving ahead,MEA spokesperson noted, “Since 20 January of this year, till yesterday, some 1,563 Indian nationals have been deported from the United States so far. Most of these Indian nationals have come by commercial flight.”
It appears that the US had deported 6,135 Indians during Trump’s first tenure from 2017 to 2021 as per the Data shared by the MEA in Parliament earlier.
The data shows that the highest number of deportations took place in 2019, with 2,042 Indian nationals sent back.
Similarly, the numbers stood at 1,024 in 2017, 1,180 in 2018, and 1,889 in 2020.
This was absolutely in contrast in Joe Biden’s presidency as the number of deported Indian nationals dropped to around 3,000.
While serving his first term, the Trump administration had launched a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigrants.
If we look into the figures, the US deported 37,660 migrants in Trump’s first month in office in 2017 according to the sources.
Further adding, America has prepared a list of 18,000 undocumented Indians slated for deportation.
Alarming Situation As Screening Will Continue
All these deportations seems to be a part of a crackdown ordered by the Trump administration, which had earlier claimed that Indians who were sent home had illegally entered the United States over the years.
On the other hand, India has cooperated with the US while maintained that it was the responsibility of countries to accept their citizens living abroad illegally, subject to verification of nationality.
In the meantime there is an estimated 725,000 Indian nationals live in the US illegally.
This is making them the third largest ethnic group after the nationals from Mexico and El Salvador as per the information provided in the Pew Research Centre data.
In the meantime, US has warned visa holders that their screening will continue even after a visa was granted to them, and any misstep on their part can lead to revocation.
The US Embassy in India warned that committing assault, theft, or burglary in the United States could lead to a visa being revoked, on Thursday.
The latest piece of advisory came after an Indian woman was caught stealing items worth Rs 1.1 lakh at a Target store in Illinois.
