Over a hundred Indians who tried to enter the US illegally returned home – their hands and legs cuffed – in a special flight on Wednesday. Many of them have sold their land and other property to pay ‘agents’ for their long illegal journey to the other side of the globe.
Now, they are back to where they started, empty-handed.
Bits and pieces of information have started coming out on how exactly they were taken to the US by agents who charged a fortune just to throw them into US soil over the fence undetected. Many have said they were abandoned by their travel agents halfway.
Videos have surfaced, purportedly showing Indians including women and children camping in a forested area in Panama, before they continued their long journey to Mexico and finally to the US border.
The video shows several Indians setting up tents in a small clearing in the forest.
Men are seen in rubber boots sitting in mud, and women with infants in their laps are seen near the tents. In one video the Indians are in raincoats amid a heavy shower in the jungle.
The difficult journey from Panama would then go northward to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala before entering Mexico, from where they would try to enter the US.
The American military aircraft carrying 104 illegal immigrants from several states arrived in Punjab’s Amritsar on Wednesday, carrying the first such batch of Indians deported by the Trump administration as part of a crackdown against illegal immigrants.
Jaspal Singh, who was among the 104 deportees, said their hands and legs were cuffed throughout the journey and they were unshackled only after landing at Amritsar airport, news agency PTI reported. Mr Singh, a resident of Hardorwal village in Gurdaspur, said he was captured by a US border patrol on January 24.
Mr Jaspal alleged he was cheated by a travel agent who promised he would be sent via the proper, legal channel. “I asked the agent to send me through a proper visa. But he deceived me,” said Mr Jaspal, adding his deal was done at Rs 30 lakh.
Another Indian, Harwinder Singh, said he left for the US in August last year. He was taken to Qatar, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, and then Mexico. From Mexico, he along with others were taken to the US, he said.
“We crossed hills. A boat, which was taking me along with other people, was about to capsize in the sea but we survived,” he told reporters. He said he saw one person dying in the Panama jungle and one drowning in the sea.
Mr Singh said his travel agent promised he would first be taken to Europe and then to Mexico. He said he spent Rs 42 lakh for his trip to the US.
“Sometimes, we got rice. Sometimes, we did not get anything to eat. We used to get biscuits,” he said.
The US action came just days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington for wide-ranging talks with President Trump.
The deportees were questioned inside the airport terminal building by different government agencies, including the Punjab Police, and state and central intelligence agencies to check if they have any criminal record.