40 MORE INDIANS HELD IN US OVER ILLEGAL ENTRY
HUMAN TRAFFICKING Nearly 100 Indians, mostly from Punjab, are lodged in two detention centres for illegally entering the US; most get nabbed at the Mexico border before being shipped to such centre
Up to 45 more Indians are being held for allegedly entering the United States illegally, taking the total number of such detainees from India to nearly 100. The new group is being held at a federal detention centre at Otero in New Mexico state. There wasn’t much information available about them, and a response was awaited from the US agency that apprehends illegal migrants to questions about the exact number in this group, where they are from in India and how long they have been in custody.
WASHINGTON: Chasing the American dream, Bunty Singh (not his real name) illegally entered the US after crisscrossing several countries, but landed in an immigration detention centre in New Mexico where he has been languishing for the last 16 months.
Hailing from a middle-class family of Jalandhar, Singh, whose father is in Punjab Police and mother a housewife, left his home town more than two years ago.
Lured by a local travel agent with the promise of being taken inside the US, it took him several months before he tried to sneak into the US through the Mexico border near El Paso in Texas.
Unlike several other fellow Indians who managed to enter the US undetected, Singh was nabbed soon thereafter. Since then, he has been under detention.
Having spent 16 months at the federal detention centre in Otero, New Mexico, Singh is now in the process of being deported back home. The travel agent who lured him is absconding. His family members say that so far, they have spent about ₹47 lakh, most of them going to the agent and a portion of it for hiring local attorney to fight his case.
Nothing has been of any help so far as the argument by Singh that he wants “political asylum” in the US “because minority Sikhs are being persecuted by majority Hindus” has failed to convince the American judges. Notably, “religious persecution” is the most common argument by Indians illegally crossing into the US and seeking political asylum here.
THOUSAND OF INDIANS LANGUISHING IN US JAILS
Satnam Singh Chahal of the North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) believes that thousands of Indians, with overwhelming majority of them being from Punjab, are languishing in jails in the US.
Chahal alleged that there is a nexus of human traffickers, officials and politicians in Punjab, who encourage young Punjabis to leave their homes to illegally enter the US and charge ₹35-50 lakh from each individual.
“The Punjabis’ enthusiasm to migrate to affluent countries in search of greener pastures has led the traffickers to exploit them,” he said.
Immigration attorney Akansha Kalra said the largest number of Indians who enter the US illegally are from Punjab and Gujarat.
Most of these Indians get nabbed at the Mexico border, get processed in Texas and then shipped out to the Pennsylvania detention centre, which is one of the largest of such detention facilities in the US.
HARSIMRAT SEEKS SWARAJ’S HELP
CHANDIGARH: Union food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Friday urged Union external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to take up the issue of identifying Punjabis detained in the Oregon detention centre in the US and intervening with her US counterpart to ensure consular and legal help.
She said the Punjab government had not been able to identify Punjabis detained at Oregon, as the affected families were left to fend for themselves.