By Staff
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Several of the 104 Indian nationals whom the Trump administration deported back to India last week have described their mistreatment on the way back to India from the United States.
For instance, a 35-year-old woman from Gujarat said that she was shackled in chains for the entire 40-hour journey back to India. A 23-year-old man told CNN that everyone was kept in shackles for the duration, and that officials “treated us horribly and without any regard whatsoever.”
“The way they looked at us, I’ll never forget it… We went to the bathroom with the shackles on,” the young man said. “Right before landing, they removed [the shackles] for the women. We saw it. For us, they were removed after we landed by the local police officials.”
The group of deported nationals included 12 children.
Though Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar claimed to India’s parliament that India’s government was working with the Trump administration to ensure no deportees were mistreated, a video on X from U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks appears to tell a different story, bolstering immigrants’ recollections.
“USBP and partners successfully returned illegal aliens to India, marking the farthest deportation flight yet using military transport,” read Banks’ text accompanying the video showing people in chains boarding an aircraft. “This mission underscores our commitment to enforcing immigration laws and ensuring swift removals.”
“If you cross illegally,” Banks continued, “you will be removed.”
Former Indian diplomat Anil Trigunayat told Al Jazeera that, in his experience, “treatment with Indian nationals, dragging them like criminals like this is unprecedented.”
“Handcuffing and those kinds of things are inhuman essentially,” Trigunayat said. “They have shown a very crass side of the American establishment … And absolutely unjustified and unnecessary.”