Women, children were handcuffed too; deportees had their feet tied with ropes, faces covered with masks-OxBig News Network

Deportee Omi Devis brother Rajesh Kumar shows a photograph at Kheri village in Kaithal district of Haryana on February 6, 2025
| Photo Credit: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar

Hands cuffed, feet tied with ropes, and face covered with a mask — 18-year-old Robin Handa arrived in Amritsar on Wednesday (February 5, 2025), days after the United States Border Security Police arrested him from U.S.-Mexico border on January 22, 2025. He was amongst the 104 Indians who were deported from the U.S. and brought back to India in an American military aircraft on Wednesday (February 5, 2025), following U.S. President Donald Trump’s hardline stance on illegal immigration.

Along with him were 19 women and 13 minors, including a 4-year-old boy, all of whom were handcuffed and their feet tied with rope for about 36 to 40 hours, recalled many of the deportees who spoke to The Hindu as they reached their hometowns on Thursday (February 6, 2025).

A motor electrician’s son, Mr. Handa’s father took a loan of ₹30 lakh to send his son to the United States, after he completed a course in Computer Science from the Industrial Training Institute in Ambala. “My father put together his savings of over ₹15 lakh from selling land and loaned ₹30 lakh to pay an agent who promised to send me to the U.S. via the U.K., only for me to be chained like an animal and brought back to the country,” Mr. Handa said. He added that he had made the “expensive” journey all the way to the U.S. only after he realised that their were no jobs for him in his hometown nor any prospect of making a decent living.

“My agent instructed me to board a flight to Ghana from Mumbai on July 24, and then unlike what he promised, I was taken to Brazil via road. I had to cross seas, wade through rivers, and traverse the Amazon jungles to reach Peru, and then Ecuador and Colombia, and from there to the U.S.-Mexico border, from where I was arrested on January 22,” Mr. Handa said. He said his agent had promised he would reach in a month through the ‘donkey route’, but it took him nearly six months, many of which he spent without proper food. “Anybody who fell sick was left behind to fend for themselves while crossing hilly terrain or the seas,” he added.

Like Mr. Handa, 45-year-old Omi Devi, her husband and their two teenagers, had decided to take the ‘donkey route’ to get to the U.S. “Omi’s eldest daughter is already studying in California. The kids were dreaming about starting their lives there and the family thought it would be best to earn some dollars and come back to India,” Rajesh Kumar, Ms. Devi’s brother, told The Hindu, hours after he met them at their Kurukshetra home. Ms. Devi’s husband Paramjeet, the primary breadwinner of the family, had been relying on farming as a livelihood.

Ms. Devi and her family travelled for a month via Italy, France, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and finally Mexico. “We crossed into the U.S. near Tijuana on January 23, and within hours were caught by men in uniform who did not appear to be the police,” she told her brother. For 10 days, they were kept in a camp with 6×6 ft. cabins for each person to sleep.

“We were given biscuits and snacks through the day. The kids slept with me and Paramjeet slept in his own cabin. When we were asked to board the bus, we were handcuffed and our legs were shackled. We didn’t even know we were headed back to India till we landed in Amritsar,” she said, adding that throughout the around 40-hour flight, they were uncuffed only a couple of times.

Sleep deprived, Mr. Handa recalls being sent to a camp in Santiago where he was kept for over 10 days. Adding to this, he recalled feeling like a “chained animal” for being handcuffed inside the aircraft. “The women and children too were handcuffed and their legs tied with ropes. Sikhs were asked to remove their turbans, and were only allowed to wear them after they landed,” he added.

Speaking to The Hindu, Harwinder Singh from Punjab’s Hoshiarpur, said that he only paid his agent ₹42 lakh after the latter promised him a work visa in the U.S. “I was informed in the last minute that the work visa did not come through and after two consecutive flights, from Delhi to Qatar to Brazil, I found myself and many like me scaling mountains and crossing seas on foot,” Mr. Singh said. While he was told he would be taking a flight from Brazil to Peru, Mr. Singh was transported by taxis that took him to Colombia and further to Panama, from where he and many immigrants like him were put on a boat to the Mexico border.

“The boat on which we were travelling capsized, and in front of my eyes I saw one of the passengers die, but nobody stopped for him. We continued our journey until we reached the U.S.-Mexico border, and before we realised what was happening, we were locked in dark cells where we were not treated well,” Mr. Singh said.