Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Unites States next week, the deportation of ‘illegal Indians’ by Donald Trump administration to India rocked the Parliament on Thursday leading to protests, adjournments, walkouts due to confrontation between the Centre’s ‘diplomatic’ stand and Opposition cry over maltreatment of the deportees.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar asserted India was engaging the Trump administration to ensure that deportees were not mistreated during flights. Jaishankar read a statement in the Lok Sabha amid noisy protests by the opposition while they walked out from Rajya Sabha alleging the statement by MEA appeared to be under pressure by the US administration.

Making a statement in the Rajya Sabha Jaishankar asserted that the process of deportation has been ongoing for several years and is not new. MEA said a total of 15,756 illegal Indian immigrants have been deported to India from the US since 2009.

Jaishankar said deportations by the US are organised and executed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities and “the standard operating procedure for deportations by aircraft used by ICE that is effective from 2012, provides for the use of restraints”.

“Further, the needs of deportees during transit related to food and other necessities, including possible medical emergencies are attended to,” he informed the house.

Opposition leaders, including Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Akhilesh Yadav amongst others protested against the mal treatment by US authorities by staging a demonstration in Parliament complex. Some of the opposition leaders protested while wearing handcuffs.

Carrying placards of “Humans. Not prisoners”, the Opposition MPs said they would not tolerate the insult to India and raised slogans such as “Indians insulted. India won’t stay silent” against the government.

A US military aircraft carrying 104 illegal Indian immigrants landed at the Amritsar airport on Wednesday. This was the first batch of Indians to be deported by the Donald Trump administration as part of a crackdown against illegal immigrants.

During his statements Jaishankar stressed that the focus should be on the strong crackdown on the illegal migration industry while taking steps to ease visas for legitimate travellers. “It is the obligation of all countries to take back their nationals if they are found to be living illegally abroad. This is naturally subject to an unambiguous verification of their nationality. This is not a policy applicable to any specific country nor indeed one only practiced by India,” he said in RS.

Later MPs also held a protest in the Parliament complex soon after Jaishankar made a statement in both Houses. “The Left MPs are shocked that the government of India has no guts to protest against the inhuman attitude shown by the Trump administration. The dignity of Indians should be protected,” CPI(M) Rajya Sabha MP John Brittas said outside Parliament. CPI Rajya Sabha member P Sandosh Kumar accused the minister of speaking like a spokesperson of the US government.

Citing data available with Indian law enforcement authorities, the MEA said in 2009, 734 were deported, 799 in 2010, 597 in 2011, 530 in 2012, and 550 in 2013. As per Jaishankar’s statement, in 2014 when the NDA government came to power, 591 were deported, followed by 708 in 2015. In 2016, a total of 1,303 were deported, 1,024 in 2017, 1,180 in 2018.

The highest deportation was witnessed in 2019 with 2,042 illegal Indian immigrants being sent back to the country. In 2020 the deportation number was 1,889; 805 in 2021; 862 in 2022; 670 in 2023; 1,368 last year, and 104 so far this year.

On the issue of several deportees having properties in the US, Jaishankar said authorities are working with those deported and getting details to work out a solution.