Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Sunday that Delhi was working with the US to ensure that Indian illegal immigrants would not be mistreated during their deportation. The statement followed protests by opposition parties criticizing the treatment of a group of migrants returned to India this week, Reuters reported, citing BTA.
A US Air Force plane carrying 104 deported migrants landed in Amritsar, India, in the state of Punjab on Sunday. This came just a week before a planned meeting between US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington, which has sparked a major political backlash in India. Opposition parties have demanded that parliament discuss the conditions under which deportees were treated during the flight.
Jaishankar told lawmakers that the deportation process followed by the US is not new and includes the use of handcuffs on migrants. He clarified that women and children were not subjected to any restrictions and added that India should focus on decisively reducing organised illegal migration.
“It is the duty of every country to take back its citizens who are found to be illegally residing abroad“, Jaishankar stressed, pointing out that India has been repatriating hundreds of its citizens for years.
“We are working closely with the US government to ensure that the deportees are not mistreated in any way during the flight“, he added.
The “Times of India“ and “India Express“ reported that all the migrants, except the children, were handcuffed during the flight, citing unnamed sources in Punjab who spoke to the deportees.
The head of the US Border Patrol posted a video on the social media platform “Ex“ showing men boarding a military plane in handcuffs and leg chains.
“There have been reports that these people were handcuffed and treated in a degrading manner during the deportation, raising serious concerns about their human dignity and rights,“ said opposition lawmaker Gaurav Gogoi.
According to a spokesman for the US embassy in Delhi, the enforcement of immigration laws is crucial to the security and public safety of the United States. "It is the policy of the United States to strictly enforce immigration laws against all aliens who are not authorized to be in the country and are subject to deportation," he added.