A US military C-17 Globemaster aircraft landed in Punjab’s Amritsar Wednesday afternoon with 104 deported Indians, grounding their ‘American dream’ that led them to stake their all in its pursuit.
The Union govt didn’t rule out more deportation flights from the US, saying all repatriated citizens whose antecedents had been verified — like in the past under the Biden administration and during Donald Trump’s previous stint as President — would be “accepted back”.
Several of the deportees told a govt official at the airport that they were picked up “at the US-Mexico border about 10 days ago”. Some said they travelled to the US from the UK.
Sources involved in the clearance process at the airport said deportees from Punjab and Haryana were sent home by road.
Those from Gujarat and other states were scheduled to take flights late Wednesday. A senior police officer said investigators would look into who helped the deportees reach the US and how much money they paid to these illegal immigration agents.
“They feel betrayed by whomever they gave money to. A Gujarati family claims to have paid Rs 1 crore to reach the US,” another official said. An uncle of a youth from a border village of Amritsar said the family sold one-and-a-half acres of land and spent a little over Rs 42 lakh to send his nephew abroad. “He reached the US via Mexico only a few months ago,” he said.
Charanjit Singh, a retired police inspector in Punjab, was at the airport to receive his grandson Ajaydeep Singh, a resident of Amritsar Cantt. He said the young man was living in a camp before being deported. On whether families of all the deportees were aware about the circumstances of their return, an official said, “Some requested us not to inform their families.”
Special counters had been set up at the airport to process formalities for the deportees. Several police vehicles and buses were sent to the cargo terminal and used to transport the deportees back to their hometowns.