US Border Patrol releases video of Indian immigrants being deported in ‘handcuffs and chains' | Watch

Hundred Indian migrants landed in Amritsar on Wednesday on a C-17 US military aircraft, chained and shackled.

Amid uproar over the issue of deportation of illegal Indian immigrants to India, US Border Patrol said this mission underscored its commitment to enforcing immigration laws.

In a video shared on its official handle, the illegal Indian migrants who were deported from the US were shown to be handcuffed, and their legs were chained.

“USBP and partners successfully returned illegal aliens to India, marking the farthest deportation flight yet using military transport. This mission underscores our commitment to enforcing immigration laws and ensuring swift removals. If you cross illegally, you will be removed,” said US Border Patrol chief Michael W Banks on the social media platform X.

USBP and partners successfully returned illegal aliens to India, marking the farthest deportation flight yet using military transport. This mission underscores our commitment to enforcing immigration laws and ensuring swift removals.If you cross illegally, you will be removed. pic.twitter.com/WW4OWYzWOf
Chief Michael W. Banks (@USBPChief) February 5, 2025

Meanwhile, the US embassy in India said enforcing the nation’s immigration laws is “critically important to the national security & public safety of US”. “It is the policy of US to faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens,” it said.

As many as 104 illegal Indian immigrants deported from the USA landed in a US military C-17 transport aircraft at Punjab's Amritsar airport on Wednesday. Of these, 30 are from Punjab, 33 each from Haryana and Gujarat, three each from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and two from Chandigarh, according to reports.

Jaspal Singh, a 36-year-old from Punjab's Gurdaspur, was among those deported. He told PTI that  he paid Rs 30 lakh to an agent who promised him legal passage to the US. He first flew to Brazil, where he was told that the rest of his journey would also be by air. Instead, he was forced to take the dangerous "donkey route," an illegal and often perilous path used by traffickers.

On Thursday, Opposition parliamentarians, including Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and SP leader Akhilesh Yadav, protested the treatment meted out to the Indians by US authorities by staging a demonstration in Parliament complex. Some of the opposition leaders protested while wearing handcuffs.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is set to brief the Rajya Sabha at 2 pm on the deportation of illegal Indian immigrants from the US.