New Delhi: A US military flight carrying illegal migrants departed for India on Monday. This comes as the Donald Trump administration has intensified its crackdown on undocumented immigrants. According to reports, the flight has left for Amritsar.
The C-17 aircraft had departed for India with migrants aboard but would not arrive for at least 24 hours, Reuters reported quoting an official, who had requested anonymity.
Trump had pledged to carry out the largest deportation in American history.
Reports claimed that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) compiled an initial list of nearly 18,000 undocumented Indian nationals. These are among 1.5 million individuals marked for deportation from the US. But it is yet to be confirmed as to how many were aboard the departing flight.
About 725,000 illegal immigrants from India live in the US, reports claimed. These illegal immigrants are the third-largest population of unauthorised immigrants after Mexico and El Salvador, the Pew Research Centre data cited.
What had New Delhi said?
Earlier New Delhi had said India had always been open to the legitimate return of undocumented Indians to their country. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said that India was verifying who from the US could be deported to India.
“With every country, and the US is no exception, we have always maintained that if any of our citizens are there illegally, and if we are sure that they are our citizens, we have always been open to their legitimate return to India,” Jaishankar had said.
