24-year-old Rahul Yadav (bandaged hand) contracted a skin ailment at the camp where he and the others were fed... Read More

NEW DELHI: For six months, these 311 Indians had responded to numbers. "308", the guard at the camp for illegal immigrants in Mexico would call out and someone would step forward. "201" and another would resignedly acknowledge the summons. It was, therefore, with deep contentment that these Indians heard their names being called by relatives after they disembarked from the chartered Boeing 747 aircraft at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on Friday.

This was enough to fill 24-year-old Rahul Yadav from Karnal with new hope. Locked up in a UN immigrants' camp at Tapachula, central Mexico, he had bruises and eczema to show for his struggle to survive there, where he was fed rice and pest-infested beans. Yadav, a science graduate, had paid a huge sum to agents to be able to live the American dream, but ended up in tin sheds erected to hold people trying to illegally enter Donald Trump 's US.

The 310 men and a woman - all swindled by agents - had been apprehended from the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Baja California, Veracruz, Chiapas, Sonora, Mexico City, Durango and Tabasco. Many of them are apparently from Punjab, others from Haryana and Gujarat, and a few from Jammu & Kashmir.

'We were held like criminals, got nothing but red beans and rice'

On Friday, when Yadav stepped out of the airport, he was misty-eyed, thankful to the Indian government for helping him return home. After being deported by the Mexican authorities, the Indian embassy in Mexico City had specially arranged their chartered flight home. "We hadn't thought the Indian government would intervene in our release because we had neither passports nor a valid country-in documents to prove our identities," said Yadav.

For the young Haryanvi and the others, the last few months have memories that they wish to erase, but can't. "We were held like criminals and given nothing in five months but red beans and rice," disclosed Ravi Yadav, who had travelled to Mexico with a group in March. Each was allotted a 3ftx3ft space in the tin sheds to sleep. They fought for survival with immigrants from Africa, Syria and Middle Eastern countries.

Some of them had sold their ancestral properties to pay up to Rs 20 lakh to an agent for the chance at migrating to the US. A relieved Amit Kumar from a village in Haryana vowed never to attempt to leave India. He had taken the risk, hoping to build a future for his three-year-old son. "We were so desperate that some tried to escape from the camp. They suffered snake bites trying to make their way through the forests," Amit said.

Another deportee, Anil Kumar, who is a graduate, left his ailing wife and infant son behind early in May. "There was no suitable job here, and I thought that moving to the US would end my woes," he said.

