3,017 Indians in detention centres

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 27

As many as 3,017 persons of Indian origin are currently lodged in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centres. This information was provided by the US immigration department in reply to a query by the North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) under the Freedom of Information (FOIA) Act.

Sharing copies of the official data received today, NAPA executive director Satnam Singh Chahal said of the 3,017 individuals detained till October, 84 were women and 2,033 men.

Of these, six women and 156 men were convicted detainees, while a woman and 86 men were facing criminal charges. As many as 77 women and 2,691 men had been detained because they were facing violations in immigration laws.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) definition of criminal convictions encompasses immigration violations such as illegal entry as well as minor infractions of the law, including simple traffic rule infringements.

Chahal said the presence of such a large number of Indian-origin individuals in detention centres dealt a significant blow to the image of Indian-American community.

Chahal said: “According to case-by-case data recently obtained and analysed by the Transnational Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, New York, the growth in detention by ICE over the past four years has been fuelled by a steady increase in the number of detainees with no criminal history. By the end of April, ICE held about 50,000 persons in detention centres nationwide. Nearly 32,000 or 64% of detainees had no criminal conviction on record. This was significantly up from just 10,000 detentions four years prior.”

“It also should be noted that though ICE has 214 detention centres across US, a majority of the nearly 32,000 detainees with no criminal history in April was held in detention centres near the US-Mexico border.”

Chahal had sought details of the number of Indian-origin detainees in US prisons to date, those seeking political asylum, those who had violated non-immigration law, number of women and children in detention and persons with the last name Kaur and Singh in US jails for violating US immigration laws.