“No one will go to us illegally” star-news.press/wp

Gurpreet Singh was a fox, his legs were strengthened and chain tied around his waist. They led him to the Tamac in Texas of the American Border Patrol, according to the waiting C-17 military planes.

It was 3. February, and after the month – a long journey, he realized that his dream lives in America. Return to India. “It felt like my ground slid me under my legs,” he said.

Gurpreet, 39, was one of the thousands of Indians in recent years that their life savings have spent savings and crossed the continents to enter us illegally through their southern border, as they tried to escape from the unemployed crisis.

The US has about 725,000 undocumented Indian immigrants, the third largest group behind Mexican and El Salvadorac, according to the latest data from Pew research in 2022. years. Years.

Now Gurpreet became one of the first undocumented Indians who will be sent home because President Donald Trump took office, with the promise that the mass deportations would give priority.

Gurpreet intended to be a request for asylum based on threats that he received in India, but – in accordance with Executive Account of Trump to Convert People Without Giving Asylum Examination He said he was removed without his case ever considered.

About 3,700 Indians were sent to rent and commercial flights during the mandate of President Biden, but the recent pictures of detainees in the chains under the trump drive in India.

The American border patrol has published images in an online video with a bombarded choir sound and warning: “If you move illegally, you will be removed.”

“We sat in handcuffs and fittings for more than 40 hours. Even women were tied in the same way. Only the children were free,” Gurpreet BBC told India. “We were not allowed to oppose. If we wanted to use the toilet, accompanied us by US forces, and only one of our fox was removed.”

Opposition parties were protested in parliament, saying that Indian deported were given “inhuman and degrading treatment.” “There is a lot of talk about how Prime Minister Modi and Mr. Trump Good friends. Then why did Mr. Modi allow it?” He said Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, a key leader of the opposition.

Gurpreet said, “Indian government should have said something in our name. They should have said the USA to perform deportation as done before, without foxes and chains.”

The Indian Foreign Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the government raised these US concerns, and as a result, on later flights, women were deported were not handcuffed.

But in the field, the frightening images and President Trump rhetoric seem to look like the desired effect.

“No one will try to go to the United States now through this illegal ‘donkey’ route while Trump is in power,” Gurpreet said.

In the long run, it could depend on whether there is a continuation of deportation, but for now, many judicciers of the Indian people are local called “agents”, they have started hiding, the fear of attacking them the Indian police.

Gurpreet said Indian authorities demanded the number of agent he used when he landed home, but the smuggler could no longer be achieved.

“I don’t blame them. We were thirsty and went to the well. They didn’t come to us,” Gurpreet said.

While the official personality of the title is putting Unemployment rate to just 3.2%He hides an uncertain picture for many Indians. Only 22% of workers have regular salaries, most self-employed and almost fifths are “unpaid helpers”, including women working in family businesses.

“We’re leaving just because we’re forced. If I got a job that paid me as much as 30,000 rupees (£ 270 / $ 340) Monthly, I wouldn’t realize I’m leaving,” said Gurpreet, who had a wife, mother and 18-month-old baby to watch.

“You can say whatever you want about the economy on paper, but you need to see reality in the field. There is no opportunity to work or take a job here.”

Guproet’s truck company was among small companies dependent in cash that were strongly affected when the Indian government withdrew 86% currency in circulation at four hours. He said he did not pay his clients and did not have money to keep business oil. Another small job he has established, managing logistics for other companies, also failed because of the Kovina lock, he said.

He said he tried to get visas to go to Canada and the Great Britain, but his applications were rejected.

Then he took all the savings, sold the land he owned, and he borrowed money from relatives to build 4 million rupees (45,000 / £ 36,000) to be organized on his journey, Gurpreet told us.

28. August 2024. He healed from India to Gitan in South America to start a strenuous road to the United States.

Gurpreet highlighted all the stoppage he made on the map on his phone. From Guvanane traveled through Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, mostly buses and cars, partly by boat, and briefly surrendered from one smuggler to another, detained and releasing authorities several times on the road.

From Columbia, smugglers tried to get a flight to Mexico, so he could avoid crossing a terrible gorgeous gap. But Colombian immigration did not allow him to board the flight, so he had to make a dangerous moment through the jungle.

The thick spaces of rainforest between Colombia and Panama, Darién Gap can be crossed on foot, risk accidents, disease and attacks by criminal gangs. Last year 50 people died giving crossings.

“I wasn’t scared. I was athletes, so I thought I was going to be fine. But he was the hardest section,” Gurpreet said. “We walked five days through the jungles and rivers. In many parts, as they pierced through the river, the water came to my chest.”

Each group followed a smuggler – or “Donker”, as Gurpret, and the other migrants relate to them, seemingly seemingly executed from the term “ass route” for illegal migration travel.

At night they would set tents in the jungle, eat some food they wore and tried to rest.

“It rained all the days we were there. We were soaked in our bones,” he said. They led them over three mountains in the first two days. After that, he said they had to follow the route marked in blue plastic bags related to the control of smugglers.

“My feet began to feel like a lead. My nails were burst, and the palms of my hands were peeled and had thorns in them. Still, we were lucky we didn’t come across robbers.”

When they reached the Panama, Gurpreet said that about 150 others detained the border officials in the cramped prison center. After 20 days, he was released, he said, and from which he took him more than a month to reach Mexico, passing through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemal.

Gurpreet said they were almost waiting in Mexico for almost a month until there was an opportunity to cross the border in the USA near San Diego.

“We didn’t scaled the wall. There is a mountain nearby we climbed. And there is a razor wire that Donker cuts,” he said.

Gurpreet entered the US 15. January, five days before President Trump took over the function – believing that he had done it in time, before the borders became impossible, and the rules became stronger.

Once in San Diego, he surrendered to the US Border Patrol, and then he was detained by immigration and customs application (ICE).

During the Biden Administration, illegal or undocumented migrants will appear before the immigration officer who would make a preliminary interview for determining whether each person had a case for asylum. While most of the Indians migrated from economic needs, some also went afraid of persecution because of their religious or social origin or their sexual orientation.

If they cleaned the interview, they were released, to the decision to provide asylum from the immigration judge. The process would often last years, but in the meantime they allowed them to stay in the United States.

It would happen to him, Gurpreet thoughts. He planned to find a job in food store, and then enter the transport, a job that is familiar.

Instead, less than three weeks after he entered the USA, he found himself, he found himself to lead to that C-17 plane and returns to where he started.

In his small house in Sultanpur Lodhi, the city in the North Station Punjab, Gurpreet is now trying to find a job to return the money he owes and submits his family.

Additional reporting AAKRO Thapar