104 Indians, many who used ‘Dunki’ routes, back home

A military transport aircraft carrying 104 Indian migrants deported from the US landed in Amritsar on Wednesday afternoon, bringing back 72 men, 19 women and 13 children — most of them from families with modest financial backgrounds and some who had entered the United States only weeks ago.

- Ravinder Vasudeva and Surjit Singh

The C-17 Globemaster arrived at 1.55 pm at the air force station, carrying deportees primarily from Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab. Of the 104 people on board, 37 were aged 18–25 years, while another 30 were in their thirties. Some appeared to be family units, with children as young as four in the list of those that returned, seen by HT.

“After 18 hours’ long air travel, all of them are a little tired but safe and well,” said Punjab’s minister of NRI affairs Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwa, who reached the airport to meet the deportees.

The group’s arrival is part of the first phase of what the Donald Trump administration has indicated will be an unprecedented crackdown on migrants who are in the US illegally. The flight comes roughly a week before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to the White House.

Gujarat and Haryana each accounted for 33 deportees, while Punjab had 30. The remaining eight deportees came from Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Chandigarh.

Families waiting outside the air force station shared accounts of how most of the deported were those choosing one of two typical avenues of illegal entry into the US after a months-long “Dunki route”—either crossing the Mexican border through Dubai and Latin America, costing upwards of ₹55 lakh; or using student visas to a third country before entering the US illegally, an endeavour that typically costs families between 40-45 lakh including education fees.