Mexico deported Indian national people to New Delhi

On the night of October 17, Mexico deported 311 Indian national people (310 men and a woman) who had entered Mexico illegally and allegedly tried to cross into the United States, according to the National Institute of Migration (NIM) of Mexico government in a statement. They were deported from the Toluca City International Airport on a Boeing 747 aircraft to New Delhi.

This air deportation is the first of this kind in Mexico, and it is implemented after the agreement between Mexico and the United States reached in summer. In June, Mexico agreed to “increase enforcement to curb irregular migration, to include the deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border,” reads the text of the US-Mexico Joint Declaration published on June 7. The migration concessions were agreed after the US President Donald Trump threatened to impose US tariffs on Mexican exports. 

 Most of the deportees were from India’s northern Punjab state, according to Indian police quoted by Al Jazeera. In 2018, 8,997 Indian citizens were apprehended in the US Southern border while trying to enter the country, according to the US Border Patrol. India is among the top 10 nationalities whose citizens were arrested in that border last year after Mexico (152,257 arrested people), Guatemala (115,722), Honduras (76,513) and El Salvador (31,369).