Hope for curbing illegal immigration through India-US cooperation: Center

New Delhi:

Days after US authorities deported a group of Indian nationals who were in the country illegally, New Delhi on Saturday said it hoped that through India-US cooperation on mobility and migration, “we will be able to curb illegal immigration”.

At his weekly briefing in Delhi, MEA spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said India has a “regular dialogue” with the United States on migration and mobility.

“On October 22, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), conducted a large-scale charter flight to the Republic of India for Indian nationals who have not established a lawful basis to remain in the United States,” DHS said in a statement last week.

This week’s flight demonstrates the department’s continued commitment to continuing “ongoing collaboration” with the Indian government and other international partners to reduce and deter illegal migration and work together to counter people smuggling, the statement said.

Jaiswal, when asked about this deportation, said, “You would have seen, recently we have had deportations from the US. We have regular dialogues with the United States on migration and mobility. And the idea of ​​this is to create more ways of legal migration.” As part of this, “our regular consular dialogue and arrangements, we have facilitated the movement of people who are in the US illegally or who are part of an illegal movement,” he added.

“This has been going on for some time. We hope that through this cooperation and our engagement with the US on mobility and migration, we will be able to curb illegal immigration,” the MEA spokesperson said.

About 1,100 Indian nationals who were in the United States illegally were repatriated to India by charter and commercial flights during the US fiscal year 2023-24, which ended on September 30, a senior US DHS official said on Tuesday.

In a virtual briefing, Royce Murray, assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the U.S. Department of the Interior, also said there were no minors on board the chartered flight on Oct. 22 that deported the group of Indian nationals. on this flight, adding that they were adult men and women.

(Except for the headline, this story was unedited by NDTV staff and published from the syndicated feed.)