Washington: The Indian mission in the US has established contact with two immigration detention centres where nearly 100 Indians, mostly from Punjab, are detained for illegally entering the country through its southern border. Around 40-45 Indians are at a federal detention centre in the southern US state of New Mexico while 52 Indians, mostly Sikhs and Christians, are held in Oregon.
Most of the detainees are asking for asylum claiming that they “experienced violence or persecution” in their home country. Satnam Singh Chahal, of the North American Punjabi Association (NAPA), believes that thousands of Indians, with overwhelming majority of them being from Punjab, are languishing in jails in the US. “A consular official has visited the detention facility in Oregon and another one is scheduled to visit the detention facility in New Mexico. We are monitoring the situation,” the Indian Embassy said. More than a dozen of them are being held at the New Mexico centre for months. And the rest of the Indians were brought to this detention centre about a week ago.
According to information obtained by NAPA through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) between three years of 2013, 2014 and 2015, more than 27,000 Indians were apprehended at the US border. Of these, over 4,000 were women and 350 children. Many of them, it is reported, are still languishing in jails. According to a FOIA request in 2015, more than 900 Indians were in various federal prisons on charges of illegally staying in the country. Chahal alleged that there is a nexus between human traffickers, officials and politicians in Punjab, who encourage young Punjabis to leave their homes to illegally enter the US and charge Rs 35 to 50,00,000 from each individual.
"Human trafficking is a criminal act which affects the global community and consequently Punjabis are too victims of this episode. The Punjabis enthusiasm to migrate to affluent countries in search of greener pastures has given the traffickers to exploit them," he said. "Using different modus operandi, people of different backgrounds involved in human trafficking and often put the lives of their clients in considerable danger. Failure to reach their promised destination leads to deportation, exploitation, indebtedness, imprisonment and even death," he rued.
He urged the Punjab government to strictly enforce human trafficking laws that have been passed by the State Assembly in recent years.
