Nearly 10,000 Indians detained in US in 2018 in removal operations: Report

Washington, December 11

Nearly 10,000 Indians were detained in the US in 2018 by law enforcement agencies as part of their operations to identify and remove "aliens" who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety, according to a government report.

Of these, 831 were removed from the US, the report said on Tuesday.

According to the report titled “Immigration Enforcement: Arrests, Detentions, and Removals, and Issues Related to Selected Populations” by Government Accountability Office, the number of Indians detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or the ICE has more than doubled between 2015 and 2018.

In 2015, the ICE had detained 3,532 Indians, which increased to 3,913 in 2016; 5322 in 2017 and 9,811 in 2018.

According to the report, the ICE removed 831 Indians in 2018. The figure was 296 in 2015; 387 in 2016 and 474 in 2017.

The number of administrative arrests of Indians by the ICE in 2015 was 317, which increased to 390 in 2016, 536 in 2017, and 620 in 2018, the report said.

According to the report, the number of enforcement and removal operations by the ICE varied from calendar years 2015 through 2018 but increased overall from 1,12,870 in 2015 to 1,51,497 in 2018.

The ICE detention data also showed that detentions of transgender and pregnant individuals increased from calendar years 2016 to 2018 and detentions of individuals with disabilities increased from 2017 to 2018. —PTI