Sukhpal Singh (left) and Harvinder Singh recounted treacherous journeys to reach the US.
Long-haul flights to South America, violent seas in tottery boats, hikes through treacherous terrain, dark cells at the US-Mexico border and a deportation flight back to India - the promise of an American dream fell flat for 104 Indian migrants who returned to India after US President Donald Trump's hardline stance on illegal immigration.
Harvinder Singh, a native of Punjab's Tahli village in Hoshiarpur district, said he was promised a work visa in the US by agent whom he paid Rs 42 lakh. At the last minute, Singh was told the visa did not come through and was later put on consecutive flights from Delhi till Qatar and then Brazil. "In Brazil, I was told I will be put on a flight from Peru, but there was no such flight. Then taxis took us further to Colombia and further to the beginning of Panama. From there, I was told a ship will transport us, but there was no ship either. This is where our donkey route, which lasted two days, began," he told reporters.
After walking through a mountainous route, Singh and the migrants accompanying him were sent in a small boat into the deep sea towards the Mexico border. In the four-hour sea journey, the boat carrying them capsized, leading to the death of one of the persons accompanying him. Another died in the Panama jungle. All this while, they survived on meagre portions of rice.
Darapur village's Sukhpal Singh also faced a similar ordeal, travelling 15 hours by sea route, and walking 40-45 kilometres through hills that were flanked by deep-treacherous valleys. "If someone got injured, they were left to die. We saw many bodies on the way," he said. The journey bore no fruit, as the Jalandhar district native was arrested in Mexico, just before he could cross the border to enter the US. "We were lodged in a dark cell for 14 days, and we never saw the sun. There are thousands of Punjabi boys, families and children in similar circumstances," he said, appealing to people to not try moving abroad through wrong routes.
A US military aircraft carrying 104 illegal immigrants from various states landed in Amritsar on Wednesday, the first such batch of Indians deported by the Donald Trump government. Of them, 33 each were from Haryana and Gujarat, 30 from Punjab, three each from Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and two from Chandigarh, sources told PTI. Nineteen women and 13 minors, including a four-year-old boy and two girls, aged five and seven, were among the deportees, they said.
Among them was Jaspal Singh, who claimed that their hands and legs were cuffed throughout the journey and they were unshackled only after landing at the Amritsar airport. He had been assured by a travel agent that he would be sent to the US in a legal way, with the price pegged at Rs 30 lakh. He was taken to Brazil, where he stayed for six months, before being captured by the US Border Patrol on January 24.
Kanubhai Patel, whose daughter is among the deportees, claimed she had gone to Europe for a vacation with her friends a month ago. "I have no idea what she planned after reaching Europe. The last time we talked with her was January 14. We have no idea how she reached the US," said Patel, a resident of Chandranagar-Dabhla village in Gujarat's Mehsana district.
Family members of the illegal immigrants from Punjab said they took huge loans to facilitate their travel to America hoping for a bright future but now face crushing debt. They now seek strict action against those agents.
"We sold whatever little we had and borrowed money on high interest to pay the agent, hoping for a better future. But he (agent) deceived us. Now, not only has my husband been deported we are also left with a huge debt," Harvinder Singh's wife Kuljinder Kaur told PTI.
In Kapurthala's Behbal Bahadue, Gurpreet Singh's family had mortgaged their house and borrowed money to send him abroad. While in Fatehgarh Sahib, Jaswinder Singh's family spent Rs 50 lakh to send him abroad, now have to pay off loans taken on high interest rates.
It is pertinent to note that the Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr districts comprise the 'NRI Belt' in Punjab, witnessing large numbers of immigrations to countries abroad every year.
