Migrants Are Deported to India on U.S. Military Plane

The US military plane with at least 100 on board landed on Wednesday in India, the officials announced, the longest such flight of deportations since President Trump took over and a sign that the countries whose leaders he favored will not spare immigration action.

It seemed to be the first use of a US military aircraft to deport people to India, which is one of the best sources unauthorized immigration to the United States. More than 1,000 Indians were sent to the country last year on commercial flights.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi government officials, who enjoys a close relationship with President Trump, expressed the belief that India was better positioned than most countries to deal with Trump’s administration, and publicly expressed their willingness to accept deportation.

But Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, Minister of the Punjab State Government, where the plane landed on Wednesday, criticized Mr. Trump’s difficult attitude about illegal immigration and suggested that Government of Mr. Modi should have done more to resist him.

“The Indian Federal Government must take this very seriously – after all, there are people from many Indian countries who have been deported,” he said in an interview on Tuesday. “And what is their crime? They may have left illegally, but that was because of their lives for a living.

Mr. Dhaliwal said he would be at the airport to receive deported and ensured that they were not treated as criminals.

The Pew Research Center estimated in 2022 that more than 700,000 unfathomable Indian immigrants live in the United States, more than from any country, except Mexico and El Salvador. Recent reports in Indian newspapers have said that just under 20,000 migrants have been scheduled for the immediate deportation.

Indians are among the migrants from all over the world who have illegally entered the United States through Mexico in increasing numbers in recent years. Last year, more than 25,000 Indians were arrested while trying to illegally cross the southern border, according to the US government. Indian migrants also contributed to the growing number of arrests on the northern border with Canada last year.

Hamad Aleziz Contribution to Washington reporting.