More than 100 Indian migrants deported by the U.S. arrive home

Evidence of President Donald Trump's vow to ramp up efforts at removing people in the country illegally could be seen early Wednesday in Amritsar, a northern Indian city, after a U.S. military plane landed, bringing 104 deported migrants back to their native country.

India, one of the top sources of unauthorized immigration into the United States, has indicated it will accept those on the plane after verifying their status.

The move came ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, which is expected next week. 

Long Island has approximately 80,522 residents who identify as Indian, alone or in combination with other ethnicities, making up 2.8% of the population. About 74% of this group, or nearly 60,000 people, live in Nassau County, according to data from the 2020 census.

Advocates and leaders in the region's Indian American community diverged Wednesday when asked to comment on the flight to India and the broader implications of immigration enforcement policies. 

Kavita Mehra, executive director of Sakhi for South Asian Survivors, a Manhattan-based nonprofit focused on ending violence against women, said Trump's stepped-up enforcement left her "deeply concerned."

"These deportations underscore a troubling pattern of criminalizing migration and disregarding the complex realities that force people to flee their home countries, including gender-based violence, political persecution and economic precarity," Mehra said. " ... When migrants, regardless of their background, are treated as threats rather than as human beings with inherent dignity and rights, it leads to dangerous policies that separate families, detain individuals in inhumane conditions and forcibly return people to situations of harm."

Immigrant survivors of violence, she said, are often trapped in cycles of abuse due to restrictive immigration policies.

"The lack of legal pathways and humanitarian protections forces many into unsafe and precarious conditions, both in the U.S. and upon return to their home countries," Mehra said.

Indu Jaiswal, chair of Indian American Forum Inc., a Garden City-based nonprofit, said while she's concerned about the deportations, immigrants must follow the law when entering the country.

"We are sorry to see these hardworking people who are going to be sent back," Jaiswal said. "But at the same time, we understand that they need to follow the laws and regulations of the country ... People are not happy about it, but we have to follow the system."

Data from the Pew Research Center shows an estimated 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants are living in the United States, behind only Mexico and El Salvador.

Pablo Bose, a professor of geography and global studies at the University of Vermont, said after pandemic travel restrictions began to lift in late 2021 and 2022, there was a significant uptick in Indian nationals arriving through the northern border, accounting for about 50% of apprehensions in the Swanton Sector. One of the most active areas of the northern border, the Swanton Sector is a 295-mile area running from the New Hampshire-Maine state line to Alexandria Bay on the St. Lawrence River in New York State. 

At the time, Bose said, there was "a lot of turmoil back home" in India. In addition, there’s a long history of travel between India and Canada — both Commonwealth nations — and of Indian nationals from certain states, particularly Punjab and Gujarat, settling in the United States and being relatively successful. 

People are seeking "the promise of a better life," Bose said. "It’s complicated. There are different reasons people make that journey."

Since 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have documented about 270,000 border encounters with Indian nationals, accounting for nearly 3% of all encounters nationwide, according to federal data analyzed by Newsday.

A majority of CBP encounters with Indian nationals — 57% — were described as "inadmissibles" or individuals seeking lawful admission into the United States, including for humanitarian protection, but who are rejected and returned to their country of origin.

Another 39% of encounters with Indian migrants were "apprehensions" or temporary detainment and 3.4%, or 9,205, were expulsions, data shows. Nearly all of those expulsions were individuals encountered at the northern border, near Buffalo, records show.

In fact, about 60% of all northern border apprehension encounters with CBP agents in 2024 were with Indian nationals, data shows.

With AP