HT News Desk – A US military plane has departed with illegal migrants to India, a US official told news agency Reuters on Monday. The C-17 aircraft departed with migrants aboard but would not arrive for at least 24 hours, he added.
The Trump administration has sought the US military’s help to assist his immigration agenda by sending additional troops to the US-Mexico border, using military aircraft to deport migrants, and opening military bases to house them.
Deportation flights have carried migrants deemed illegal, to Guatemala, Peru, and Honduras. The report added that India is the farthest destination the flights will travel to since the return of the Trump administration.
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.
Trump-Modi conversation
President Trump also noted that he discussed immigration with PM Modi and said India will do ‘what is right’ when it comes to taking back “illegal immigrants”.
The White House said the two leaders had a ‘productive call’ and discussed how to ‘expand and deepen’ cooperation between the two countries.
Rubio raised the issue of what the State Department termed as “irregular immigration” with Jaishankar. India’s external affairs minister had said that New Delhi “firmly opposed” illegal immigration to the US.
“Many other illegal activities get joined to it. It is not desirable, and it is not reputationally good. If there are any of our citizens who are not here legally and we are sure they are our citizens, we have been open to their legitimate return to India,” Jaishankar had said.
According to an HT report, US deported more than 1,100 illegal immigrants from India between October 2023 and September 2024.
Royce Murray, assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said in November that there had been a “steady increase” in deportations of illegal Indian immigrants from the US in recent years.
The Ministry of External Affairs had termed the deportations as an outcome of “regular consular dialogue and arrangement” with the US. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal also said that it continues to hold “regular consular dialogue” and make necessary “arrangements” on immigration and mobility of people between the two countries.
(With Reuters inputs)
