External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday that the government plans to curb illegal immigration from India as he urged the US to ensure that the deportees are not mistreated on their way back.
"We are engaging the US government to ensure that the deportees are not mistreated in any manner," he told the Rajya Sabha during the session to discuss the deportation of Indians from the US. "At the same time, the House will appreciate that our focus should be on the strong crackdown against the illegal immigration industry."
The opposition parties have been protesting over the treatment meted out to 104 Indians, who were deported from the US. Jaishankar said law enforcement agencies had been instructed to engage with all the returnees from the US to investigate the pattern of their movement by shady immigration agents.
"On the basis of information provided by the deportees, law enforcement agencies will take necessary, preventive and exemplary action against the agents and such agencies," he said.
The minister also said countries are obliged to take back their nationals if they are found to be living illegally abroad and the process of deportation is not a new one. "It is in our collective interest to encourage legal mobility and discourage illegal movement."
A US military aircraft carrying 104 illegal Indian immigrants landed at the Amritsar airport on Wednesday. This was the first batch of Indians to be deported by the Donald Trump government as part of a crackdown against illegal immigrants.
The deportees claimed their hands and legs were cuffed throughout the journey and that they were unshackled only after landing in Amritsar, causing uproar in India.
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