Opposition lawmakers protest alleged mistreatment of Indian deportees by US

NEW DELHI (AP): India’s Parliament was disrupted on Thursday as opposition lawmakers protested the alleged mistreatment of 104 Indian immigrants deported by the US.

A US military plane on Wednesday carrying 104 deported Indian immigrants arrived in a northern Indian city – the first such flight to the country as part of a crackdown ordered by the Trump administration. The lawmakers and media reports said the deportees’ arms and legs were shackled while on the aircraft.

Parliament’s proceedings were adjourned Thursday as the lawmakers chanted slogans and called to discuss the deportation. Renuka Chowdhury, a lawmaker in the Congress party, said the deportees “were handcuffed, had their legs chained, and even struggled to use the washroom.” Her colleague Gaurav Gogoi called it “degrading.”

Parliament speaker Om Birla tried to calm the lawmakers, saying the transportation of the deportees was a matter of US foreign policy. “The foreign country also has its own rules and regulations,” he said.

The Press Trust of India news agency quoted one of the deportees, Jaspal Singh, saying deportees’ handcuffs and leg chains were taken off only at the Amritsar airport in India. Singh, 36, said, “We initially thought we were being taken to another camp in the US. Then a police officer told us that we were being taken to India.”

The US government usually carries out deportations on commercial and chartered flights. The use of the US military to return people to their home country is a relatively new method that started under the Trump administration.

Opposition lawmakers, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, also protested outside the Parliament building as they demanded a response from the government. Some wore handcuffs and carried placards that read: “Humans not prisoners.”

The deportation came ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, which is expected next week. US President Donald Trump and Modi discussed immigration in a phone call last week, and Trump stressed the importance of India buying more American-made security equipment and fair bilateral trade.

A spokesman at the US Embassy in New Delhi said enforcing immigration laws was critical for the country’s national security and public safety. “It is the policy of the United States to faithfully execute the immigration laws against all inadmissible and removable aliens,” he said.

India has cooperated with the US and said it is ready to accept the deported Indians after verification. New Delhi says it is against illegal immigration mainly because it is linked to several forms of organized crime, and it has not objected to the US deporting its citizens.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week the deportation flights were an effective way to stem the flow of illegal migration, which he said is “destructive and destabilizing.” The State Department said such deportations deter other people considering migrating illegally.

India’s junior External Affairs Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh recently told India’s Parliament that 519 Indian nationals were deported to India between November 2023 and October 2024, citing US government data.

A Pew Research Center report said that as of 2022, India ranked third – after Mexico and El Salvador – on the list of countries with the largest number of unauthorized immigrants – 725,000 – living in the US.