New Delhi:
Days after US authorities deported a group of Indian nationals who were staying illegally in that country, New Delhi said on Saturday that it hopes India-US cooperation on mobility and migration can “deter illegal immigration”.
At his weekly briefing in Delhi, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India has a “regular dialogue” with the United States on migration and mobility.
“On October 22, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), conducted a large-scale charter flight to the Republic of India of Indian nationals who had not established a legal basis to remain in the United States ,” DHS said in a statement last week.
This week's flight demonstrates the ministry's continued commitment to pursuing “sustainable cooperation” with the Indian government and other international partners to reduce and deter irregular migration and work jointly to combat human trafficking, it said. the ministry.
Replying to a question about this deportation, Jaiswal said, “You would have seen that we have had some deportations from the US recently. We regularly hold dialogues with the United States on migration and mobility. And the idea behind that is to provide more opportunities for legal migration.” As part of this, “through our regular consular dialogues and arrangements, we have facilitated the movement of people who are in the US illegally or are part of an irregular movement,” he added .
“This has been going on for a while. We hope that with this cooperation and our engagement with the US in the areas of mobility and migration, we can deter illegal immigration,” the MEA spokesperson said.
About 1,100 Indian nationals, who were staying illegally in the United States, were repatriated to India via chartered and commercial flights during the US financial year 2023-2024 ended September 30, a senior US DHS official said on Tuesday.
In a virtual briefing, Royce Murray, Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy, US DHS, in response to a question regarding the October 22 charter flight that deported a group of Indian nationals, had also said that there were “no minors” was among them. on that moving flight, adding that these were all male and female adults.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)