Jalandhar: “When we were handcuffed and our legs were being chained, we thought that we were going to another migrant camp. We had no idea where we were being taken until we boarded the US military aircraft and were told that we were being deported,” said Harwinder Singh, one of the 104 Indians who arrived aboard a deportation aircraft in Amritsar on Wednesday (February 5).
Once inside the aircraft, the handcuffed and chained deportees were made to sit facing each other and remained restrained even as they asked to use the washroom, Harwinder told The Wire.
“It was one shock after the other for us … We pleaded with the US officials to remove our handcuffs so that we could drink water and use the washroom, but they did not respond,” he said.
Arrested for entering the US without documentation, the deportees hail from various parts of India but largely from Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab. Those from Punjab were grilled by security personnel at Amritsar’s Sri Guru Ramdas ji International Airport on Wednesday before being released late at night.
The chief of the US Border Patrol on Thursday shared a video of Indian deportees being led into a C-17 military aircraft in handcuffs and chains, validating their claims of being restrained.
Harwinder said that officials undid his chains at the Amritsar airport and told him he was barred from entering the US for five years.
“I felt helpless and mentally lost, trying to figure out if it was all a bad dream or the harsh reality,” he said.
Women also among those ‘restrained’ aboard military flight
While external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said in parliament on Thursday that American federal policy did not entail ‘restraining’ women being removed from the US, one woman deportee aboard the military flight said she was handcuffed and her legs chained, while a relative of another woman told The Wire she was handcuffed and suffered injuries.
Amritsar-based Manjeet Kaur’s hands and feet were swollen and she was taken to the clinic by her family after going home, a distant relative of hers told The Wire.
“When Manjeet came home at around 9:30 pm, she had swelling and minor injuries on her hands and feet. She was already in a state of shock because of her deportation and 40-hour-long flight. Her family took her to the doctor and got some medicines to treat the swelling,” the relative said.
He continued: “All women deportees were handcuffed and their legs were chained like the male deportees. However, children were spared and they were not handcuffed.”
Similarly, Lovepreet Kaur from Punjab’s Kapurthala district, who arrived aboard the military flight with her son, told the Ajit newspaper that she was similarly restrained.
“I was handcuffed and my legs were chained. Everybody was meted out the same treatment. We were taken together to the US military plane and learnt about our deportation there,” said Lovepreet, who had reportedly spent Rs 1.5 crore to join her husband in the US via a so-called ‘donkey route’.
Lovepreet began her journey to the US on January 1 this year and reached the country on January 27. She was deported within ten days of her arrival. Like many others, she also travelled to the US via European countries using a Schengen visa, she told mediapersons.
Some male deportees also said that women were handcuffed. Thirty-four year-old Jaskaran Singh, who is based in Kapurthala and was also deported aboard the US military plane, said, “All the women in the flight were handcuffed and their legs were chained. However, they spared the children.”
Deportees held at migrant camp at US-Mexico border before removal to India
Jaskaran continued: “The US Border Police officials had handcuffed us right at the migrant camp on the US border [with Mexico]. Seeing the US police action, some children from a Gujarati family started crying loudly. They were terrified and it took a while for their parents to pacify them.”
He also said that his time at the migrant camp was akin to “torture”.
“We were not allowed to sleep. The US border police would knock on the doors loudly,” Jaskaran alleged. “We were staying in a flex camp, which housed around 50 people in a standard room size area … We were given Lays chips and apples to eat. However, thankfully, the washrooms were fine.”
Harwinder, who had noted that he only found out about his deportation when boarding the military aircraft, said that the deportees were uncertain about their future while at the camp. “We did not know anything. Everybody was clueless.”
‘Sold agricultural land, gold to finance US journey’
Harwinder’s wife Kuljinder Kaur said that their family spent Rs 42 lakh to finance his journey to the US.
“We spent Rs 42 lakh to send my husband to the US, for which we not only sold an acre of agricultural land but also my gold. We have been duped,” said Kuljinder, who added that members of her village’s panchayat had gone to the local police station to receive her husband.
She also questioned the silence of the Modi government, saying, “If they cannot provide decent work and employment to people back home, at least they should speak up for those who try to make their life better on their own. It is shocking that not just the Modi government but the AAP [Aam Aadmi Party] government also remained silent during this time. They should have spoken for us.”
Jaskaran, who comes from an agricultural family, said that he now stares at a bleak future, having become saddled with a debt of Rs 45 lakh.
“I am the youngest in the family and the only brother of four sisters. My elderly parents are deeply upset and disheartened. ‘Bad luck’, what else I can say”, he said.
Jaskaran added that his trip to the US via the ‘donkey route’ began on July 19, 2024 and that he reached the country on January 24, 2025.
He and a group of around eight others from Punjab – all of whom were deported on Wednesday – had paid Rs 45 lakh each to a Dubai-based travel agent, he said.
The group went by air from Amritsar to Dubai and then to South Africa and Brazil. From Brazil, they travelled by bus; crossed rivers, hills, marshy areas and jungle by foot; and crossed Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and finally Mexico.
“We crossed around 13 countries, only to roam the world and return home empty-handed. Sadly, our agent, who remained in touch with us all this while, never told us anything about” US President Donald Trump’s strict immigration policies, he said. “Our agent had promised us that we would reach the US within a month, but it took us six months to cross the US border.”
In another incident, a Jalandhar-based deportee named Devinderjit went missing from his house during the wee hours of Thursday.
When this report was filed, his elderly mother and villagers were trying to trace him.
Jaspal Singh, another deportee onboard the flight, told The Wire, “Not only is it a huge setback – we are staring at a major financial loss – but the ordeal that we faced in the 40-hour long journey has left us shattered too.”
Like others, Jaspal, who hails from Gurdaspur district, gave Rs 30 lakh to an agent to send him to the US. He stayed in Brazil for six months during his journey and crossed the US border in January this year, after which he was arrested by the US Border Police and deported within 11 days.
This article was updated at 10:30 pm on Thursday to add more deportee accounts.
