Held for entering US without valid papers

NEW DELHI: The first feeling Ravinder Singh, 25, had on touching down at Delhi was a sense of relief over his wrists and legs being untied before he stepped out of the chartered plane at IGI Airport on Wednesday morning. But he soon sobered up when he remembered the money his father had spent both on getting him to the United States and then trying to get him freed from a detention camp for illegal migrants there.It was a bittersweet moment to be back on home soil for Singh, a resident of Kaithal in Haryana. Sharing his mixed feelings were the other Indian detainees — 142 men and three women — who had been deported by the US for staying in the country without proper documents.It was a humiliating return journey for the group, trussed up as they were like common criminals during the flight from Arizona to Delhi, via Dhaka.They had paid agents around Rs 25 lakh each to clandestinely enter the US through different borders. Some even worked for a while before being detected by immigration authorities in Arizona, California, Texas, Georgia, New Jersey and Mississippi and confined to migrant camps, where they said conditions were challenging.After landing, the deportees were questioned by officials of the Intelligence Bureau and the Foreigners Regional Registration Office. The deportees said they would head home to Punjab, Haryana, Mumbai and Gujarat after immigration formalities were completed in Delhi.Their 24-hour-long flight departed from Arizona and reached Delhi at 7.30am on Wednesday after a brief stopover in Dhaka to deplane 25 Bangladeshi deportees. Immigration officials said the 145 Indians did not possess documents making them eligible to enter or stay in America and had been detained in immigration camps set up after the Trump administration nudged the American states to halt the flow of illegal immigrants into the country.“I spent most of the money my father earned through his life to go to America, and it makes me even more miserable that he had to take a loan to be able to hire a lawyer for me when I was caught there,” said Ravinder Singh. “There is little that I can do to repay him, but I will do what I can to help him financially.”To a person, the group shared Singh’s regret. They had reached America via multiple routes. While some went through Ecuador and other South American countries, there were others whose route to the US lay across Europe, past Greece, Italy and other countries.“A majority of these deportees are aged between 19 and 31years. All of them were given emergency certificates that enabled a one-way journey from the US to India,” said one of the immigration officials at IGIA.Another immigration official had discouraging news for the deportees. “Their records will be maintained based on the documentation done in the airport today,” he said, adding that the agents who had been paid huge sums to plan the illegal journeys were all missing. He hoped that their companies would track them down.This was the second batch of deported Indians arriving in Delhi from the US. On October 18, 311Indians, similarly detained in immigration camps, had landed at IGIA, escorted by 60 security personnel. A chartered Boeing 747 had taken off from Toluca City in Mexico and brought the deportees to India. Most of them were residents of Punjab and Haryana and many had been caught by immigration authorities when just metres away from crossing into the US.Scrutiny on cross-border movement between the US and Mexico had been strengthened in May after US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on Mexican imports if that country failed to stop people entering America illegally through its borders.