US officials kept around 100 deported Indian migrants in shackles for their 40-hour flight home, including during bathroom breaks, in the latest incident to spark anger overseas at President Donald Trump’s migration crackdown.
Indian lawmakers demonstrated outside parliament on Thursday, some wearing shackles and others mocking the much-touted friendship between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Elsewhere in New Delhi, members of the youth wing of India’s main opposition party burned an effigy of Trump.
Last month, the spectacle of Colombian deportees being shackled as they boarded a US deportation flight sparked a bitter dispute between the two countries, with Colombian president Gustavo Petro initially refusing the military plane permission to land.
The anger in India comes days ahead of an expected visit by Modi to meet Trump – whom he has called a “true friend” – at the White House.
S. Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal, a government minister in the western state of Punjab, where the deportation flight landed, urged Modi to “now use his friendship to resolve the issue.”
Dhaliwal also questioned “the usefulness of this friendship if it cannot help Indian citizens in need,” his office said in a statement.
The flight to India was the longest in distance since the Trump administration began deploying military aircraft for migrant deportations, according to a US official.
“Our hands were cuffed and ankles tied with chains before we took the flight,” said 23-year-old Akashdeep Singh, who arrived in Punjab on Wednesday with 103 other deportees.
“We requested the military officials to take it off to eat or go to the bathroom but they treated us horribly and without any regard whatsoever,” Singh added.
“The way they looked at us, I’ll never forget it… We went to the bathroom with the shackles on. Right before landing, they removed (the shackles) for the women. We saw it. For us, they were removed after we landed by the local police officials.”
US Border Patrol Chief Michael W. Banks posted a video of the Indian deportees being put onto a plane on X. In the video, shackles are seen on the wrists and ankles of several men who shuffle slowly up the ramp.
‘Better life, better future’
Deportee Sukhpal Singh, 35, also said the shackles were kept on throughout the flight, including during a refueling stopover on the Pacific island of Guam.
“They treated us like criminals,” he said. “If we would try to stand because our legs were swelling due to the handcuffs they would yell at us to sit down.”
Young Indians looking for work opportunities have made up a sizeable portion of undocumented migrants in the US, many after making the dangerous trek through Latin America to reach the US southern border.
Many say they see no future at home where a jobs crisis is stifling young hopes in the world’s most populous country.
In just four years, the number of Indian citizens entering the US illegally has surged dramatically — from 8,027 in the 2018-19 fiscal year to 96,917 during 2022-23, government data showed.
“I had gone for work, for better life, for a better future,” said Sukhpal Singh, who has a son and daughter and hoped to better provide for them by getting a job in the US.
“You see it in movies and you hear from people around you that there’s work there and people are successful there so that’s why I also wanted to go.”