Deported from US, 167 illegal immigrants reach Amritsar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, May 19

The US has deported 167 illegal Indian immigrants through a special flight that landed at the airport here around 4 pm on Tuesday.

On their arrival, they were shifted to a high-security area where medical teams screened each one of them. They had reports of rapid diagnostic test (Covid-19) conducted before boarding the plane in the US.

As the protocol demands, all will be placed under the 14-day quarantine in their home districts.

Ajnala SDM Deepak Bhatia said, “The medical examination of the returnees is underway. So far, no suspected case of Covid-19 has surfaced.”

Of the 167 illegal immigrants, 79 are from Haryana, 67 from Punjab, eight from Gujarat, three each from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, two each from Kerala and Telangana, and one each from Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.

The SDM said, “Of the 67 returnees from Punjab, five each belong to Amritsar and Tarn Taran. Besides, 21 others will stay in Amritsar temporarily before they will be sent to their native states. We are working on the modalities in this connection.”

Sources say the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested 1,793 illegal Indian immigrants.

Most of them sneaked in to Texas, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Washington and Atlanta illegally through Mexico border illegally and sought asylum on the pretext of “atrocities and persecution” in India. They were, however, nabbed and lodged in 95 detention centres in New York, Atlanta and San Francisco.