Kusum Arora 
Jalandhar: A group of deported Indians who landed from the US at a temporary detention centre in the Central American country of Costa Rica in late February have been asked to arrange and pay for their return tickets to India themselves.
The deportees have been staying in elongated shed-like structures set up by the Center for Temporary Attention of Migrants (CATEM) at Corredores in the Puntarenas province of Costa Rica since February 26, 2025. There are three Indian deportees in a group that also has undocumented workers from China, Pakistan, Vietnam, Afghanistan and other countries.
The deported migrants are surviving on bread twice a day and have been drinking water from taps.
Earlier, those meant to be deported to India were also sent to Panama, from where a civilian flight arrived last month. A total of 344 Indians have been deported from the US in February 2025.
Initially, the anti-immigration hardliner US president Donald Trump’s administration had sent undocumented workers directly to their home countries in US military flights. Deported Indians had been restrained during the flights. While three such flights landed at Sri Guru Ramdas Ji International Airport at Amritsar last month, similar flights were also sent to Mexico, Colombia and Nicaragua.
After the three military flights, the US government decided to send Indian deportees to Central American countries.
As per a report in Al Jazeera, countries like Panama and Costa Rica agreed to take the illegal immigrants of other Asian countries reportedly under political and economic pressure from the Trump administration. The workers will be held in third countries until their repatriation is completed, it is understood.
While deportees who landed in Panama were initially kept at Decapolis hotel, those who perhaps refused to go back were sent to a remote camp at Darien Gap in the Darien province of Panama.
The fact that those awaiting deportation in Costa Rica had been asked to arrange for their passage back came to light after Indian deportee Navdeep Singh reached out to The Wire.
Originally from Chak Ghubaya Taranwali village of Ferozepur district, Punjab, Navdeep was supposed to reach Amritsar in the second military deportation flight from the US on February 15. He was suffering from a fever and was deboarded from the plane.
Talking to The Wire from the detention centre at Costa Rica in a conference call along with his father and paternal uncle, Navdeep Singh said, “We are staying in an open shed with around 150 deportees in Costa Rica. I am not aware of the exact location of the detention centre but it is on the outskirts of a jungle and in a big warehouse-like area. We are not able to sleep at night, as there are not enough cots to lie on. Sometimes we sleep during the day but remain awake at night. We keep sitting or thinking how we will reach home. It is hot here in Costa Rica and we are in a helpless condition.”
Navdeep said deported people had been asked to buy tickets “on our own and leave Costa Rica within one month.”
‘Terrorists’
He added that Indian undocumented workers were humiliated, mistreated, and labelled as “terrorists,” which left them heartbroken. The deportees, he said, were sent in a US military plane from San Diego, California to Costa Rica in handcuffs and shackles.
“From Costa Rica airport, we were taken to the detention centre in a bus. While the handcuffs and shackles of all other deportees were removed by the security staff in the flight itself, those of the Indian deportees were not removed. We were labelled as terrorists. The security staff called us terrorists again, and removed our handcuffs and shackles some 10 kilometres away from the detention centre in Costa Rica,” he said.
While the International Organization for Migration (IOM) paid for the previous flights of deportees from Panama through its Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration (AVRR) programme, this time the workers were asked to arrange air tickets on their own. It is not clear if all the worker have been asked to arrange air tickets themselves or if the order was meant only for the Indians.
Navdeep said more on what Costa Rican security staff told them on this.
“The security staff told us that since we own stores and factories in the US and had been staying illegally there, hence we have been deported. They also claimed that our families were well settled in the US, and that they would help us in buying our return tickets. We are shocked at these allegations, as these are totally false,” he added.
As per a report in Spanish news outlet Dario Extra, Mario Zamora, Costa Rican minister of public security said that most Asian migrants who arrived in Costa Rica after having been deported from the US have the economic condition to return to their countries of origin. “Some of them were even owners of supermarkets and stores, but they did not comply with the legal papers for staying in the United States, that’s why they were arrested by the immigration authorities and deported,” he said. It was Navdeep who shared this link with the reporter.
Also read: The Tortuous Routes Some Indians Are Taking to Get to Foreign Shores
When asked how he managed to get a mobile phone and a data connection, Navdeep said, “One of the Indian deportees, who had some US dollars and a mobile phone, bought a SIM card for US $ 11, which helped him in connecting with his family. However, we were not allowed to make a video call, click pictures or send the location of the detention centre. The security staff keep an eye on us.”
Navdeep said that he has no idea how he would reach home now, as nobody was listening to them. “We cannot even interact with the security staff, as they speak in Spanish. We keep on translating Spanish on Google to get an idea about what they are trying to convey. Sadly, nobody from the Indian Embassy has reached out. We are in dire need of assistance but there is nobody whom we can approach,” he added.
Navdeep’s father Kashmir Singh and uncle Jagir Singh have urged Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and the Union government to help them.
“It is our humble appeal to the Punjab CM to help us financially and buy air tickets for our son. He is in poor health and mental condition. I sold all my assets and raised Rs 50 lakh to send my son to the US. The Jalandhar-based travel agent, who planned my son’s US trip, is also not taking our calls. We are in a miserable condition,” Kashmir said.
Talking about his health condition in the US, Navdeep said that in the name of medical treatment, he was taken to the hospital just once. “After I was not allowed to board the flight on February 15, I was taken to a hospital in the US where the doctors gave me some medicine. Though I kept on taking that medicine, my fever did not improve. I managed on whatever medicine I had. They did not take me to the doctor again and on February 26, I was sent to Costa Rica,” he said.
Notably, as per a report in The New York Times Costa Rica’s ombudsman had stated that “Trump deportees arrived in visible distress”. Migrants from around the world did not know where they were or what would happen to them, the report mentioned.