Donald Trump’s deportation plans for an Indian flight awaits clearances

The United States is preparing to send dedicated chartered deportation flights with Indians who were staying illegally, back to the country soon. The move is being seen as part of efforts to showcase President Donald Trump’s determination to fix what he calls “halt the border invasion, dismantle criminal cartels and restore national sovereignty”.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi scheduled to make his first visit to US to meet Trump soon—the visit is expected mid-February—for both sides optics is as important as the agenda and substantive outcomes. Which is why the issue of deportation flights to India is becoming a sensitive subject, government officials confess, given its potential to impact the optics. From the Indian perspective, the paramount requirement is to ensure that those individuals being deported are Indian nationals beyond doubt, while for the Trump administration, “it is the responsibility of each nation to take back their citizens who are illegally present in the US in a serious and expeditious manner”.

Sources indicated that the lack of a national database, inability to access Aadhaar due to Supreme Court ruling on privacy and bureaucratic procedures that involve the ministries of external affairs, home affairs and State Police have the potential to hinder the expeditious processing of requests from the US government to accept deportation flights, a situation that can potentially become an irritant in the bilateral relations.

The process to ascertain the nationality of the Indians to be deported is done through an online system called Nationality Status Verification Portal in which Indian Embassies upload the personal details of the individuals sought to be deported by foreign governments. Those details are then shared by MEA with the concerned state police authorities to confirm the nationality of the individual. After confirmation by the state police, the MEA informs the Embassy which issues Emergency Certificates to the concerned local authorities handling deportations.

Sources said the challenge comes when US authorities provide sketchy details or usually when deportees seek legal recourse in US through immigration attorneys by filing repeated petitions before courts to stop the deportation on one pretext or the other.

As almost all Indians entering illegally into US apply for asylum, it is near impossible for US authorities to deport them. While the entry figures are in thousands, US authorities on an average till 2022 were deporting around 350-400 Indians only in one year. More than push factor it is pull factor which is driving the illegal immigration into US with many industry, agriculture and trade interests requiring cheap labour playing a major role. Trump has set ambitious goals to reverse this trend. Whether deportations will be enough or broader measures are needed, like addressing the issue of lax asylum laws that encourage human traffficking and illegal migration is yet to be examined.

Another concern that arises here is the involvement of organised crime networks, fuelling the pro Khalistan sentiment, using asylum loopholes to grow financially and expand their activities. This is another dimension to the entire problem of Indian illegals in the US that has been a concern for New Delhi as well. Incidentally, proscribed pro Khalistani operative in the US, Gurpatwant Pannun is a US immigration attorney.

While the alleged illegal activities of pro Khalistani networks in US and Canada dominated the list of security concerns for New Delhi last year, the issue of Indians entering illegally into US became a hot topic among Trump supporters in the run up to the US Presidential elections, especially about young men, mostly from Punjab and Haryana, crossing the Southern border from Mexico into US. As per Department of Homeland Security (DHS) statistics, 96,917 Indians entered illegally into US through land borders in 2022-23 and 90,414 in 2023-24. As per DHS, this figure was only 8027 in 2018-19. In contrast, the deportation figures are very small. As per DHS, 271,484 persons were deported in the last fiscal, out of which 1529 were Indians. Given the scale of illegal immigration into US, the entry of Indian illegals is not as big a number compared to other countries. As per DHS, around 2.9 million people entered illegally into US through land borders during the last fiscal year alone.

This year the Department of Homeland Security, through US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is once again expected to prepare a deportation flight- the last one was on October 22, facilitating the removal of Indian nationals who could not establish legal basis to remain in the US.