NEW DELHI – More than 300 Indian nationals who paid tens of thousands ofdollars each trying to get into the United States arrived in New DelhiFriday after an “unprecedented” mass deportation by Mexico.
The move, which saw those deported flown back to the capital on a charterflight, follows a deal on illegal migration struck between Mexico and USPresident Donald Trump in June.
The only woman in the group of 311 people, Kamaljit Kaur, 34, told anIndian news agency she spent 5.3 million rupees ($74,500) for herself, herhusband and her son.
Another, 19-year-old Mandeep Singh, said he travelled through sevencountries in his attempt to make it to the US, beginning in Ecuador andtrekking through harsh terrain and seeing corpses on the way.
“For seven days, we walked through the dense jungles of Panama. We finallyreached Mexico on September 12. We were just 800 kilometres (500 miles)away from the US before the Mexican authorities hauled and deported us,” hetold the news agency.
Mexico´s National Migration Institute said the Indian nationals were alladults, and that this was the first time that so many people had been sentback across the Atlantic in one day.
The deportation was “unprecedented”, it said.
“Under the new administration, we are trying to have a more orderly processof immigration,” Mexico´s ambassador to India Federico Salas told an IndianTV.
“The Mexican government is exercising a policy that is within the legalframework and with full respect to the human rights of migrants.” -APP/AFP