Return of the natives

Days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, a US military aircraft has brought 200-odd illegal Indian migrants back to their homeland. El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru — these are certainly not the countries that India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, would like to be bracketed with. Yet, here’s the inescapable fact: India, that is Bharat, figures among the nations with the largest unauthorised immigrant population in the US, according to Pew Research Centre. A deportation flight may not seem to be the ideal build-up to the PM’s visit, but New Delhi has managed to earn a few brownie points by talking tough on illegal immigration. During his recent trip to the US, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar did some good diplomatic groundwork, reassuring the Trump administration that India was open to the ‘legitimate return’ of its errant nationals.

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India wisely avoided a confrontational approach, which would have created embarrassing bitterness ahead of the Modi-Trump meeting. There was none of the bravado that had left Colombian President Gustavo Petro with egg on his face. He initially refused to accept military flights carrying deportees, but did a U-turn after President Trump threatened to impose tariffs and sanctions on Colombia. Now, Petro is requesting migrants from his country to come home right away and “build social wealth”. Such appeasement raises vital questions: Does India have a plan to rehabilitate around 18,000 nationals who have been identified for deportation from the US? And how will Delhi ensure that these people, including Punjabis and Gujaratis, do not undertake an immigration misadventure all over again?

A nationwide crackdown on unscrupulous travel agents is a must to deter desperate people who want to enter America by hook or by crook. The distant dream of Viksit Bharat can wait. The immediate priority should be to create lucrative job opportunities at home for skilled manpower. At the same time, streamlining legal migration ought to be high on the PM’s agenda during his one-on-one with Trump.