Salempura: He took Daler Singh six months and $ 45,000 arrive in the United States last paperwork. At three weeks of his arrival, he was sent back to his native India on a military plane, his hand and legs handcuffed throughout the trip.
Singh, 37, was among the 104 Indians deported by US authorities on Wednesday in a very publicized transfer that fulfills a key electoral promise of President Donald Trump, but it is a shame for India, a close partner, whose Prime Minister Narendra Modi must visit Washington next week.
“I have lost the profits of my whole life. My dreams are destroyed,” Singh said in his house in the town of Salempura in the state of Punjab, which borders Pakistan.
“No one should take the illegal route and buy promises made by agents. People must pass through the visa route.”
Singh said he had to mortgage jewelry and family lands to raise about four million rupees ($ 45,700) to pay the agent. He said that his trip had involved flying to Dubai in early August, where he stayed for several months before being made to Trek for days in Mexico on the way to the United States.
The US authorities arrested him on January 15 and then transferred to him and others to a C-17 Globemaster plane this week for the trip back home.
In a publication on social networks, the head of the United States Border Patrol (USBP), Michael W Banks, published a video that showed some men taken to a military plane with wives and legs in chains.
“The USBP and the partners successfully returned to illegal foreigners to India, marking the farthest deportation flight and using military transport,” Banks said in X.
“This mission underlines our commitment to enforce immigration laws and guarantee rapid moving. If you cross illegally, they will eliminate it.”
The return of the Indians, from four to 46 years, and including 25 women, has given the country's opposition parties the opportunity to hit the Modi government, who has talked about promoting ties with the United States.
The deportees were five Indian states, including the native state of Modi de Gujarat, and the federal territory of Chandigarh.
Handcuff
“Our hands and legs were handcuffed at all times,” said Singh, wearing tired after the long trip while the journalists told him questions, his wife and two children circling in the courtyard of his house on a floor for a wheat field .
“They did not unlock our fists even when we ate.”
India's Foreign Minister, S Jaishankar, told Parliament that it was a standard practice for the United States immigration and customer compliance authorities to restrict deportees, but that women and women were not made with women and Children on the plane to India.
“Of course, we are committing to the United States government to ensure that the deportees who return are not mistreated in any way during the flight,” he said.
“At the same time, the house will appreciate that our approach should be in repression, a great repression in the illegal migration industry, while taking measures to relieve visas for the legitimate traveler.”
He said that the application agencies of the Indian law would act against agents that organize such immigration based on the information of the returnees. Jaishankar said that in the last 16 years, more than 15,000 Indians had been deported to India from the United States.
One of them was Akashdeep Singh, 23, who arrived in the United States last month who could not ensure work in India. His agricultural family sold two tractors and some lands and received loans to raise more than 6 million rupees for their illegal trip.
“Why would we send our children outside? There are no jobs here,” said Swaran Singh's father. “We demand jobs for our children, so we never have to send them far.”
