33,000 Indians facing removal proceedings in US: NAPA

JALANDHAR: As many as 33,593 Indian nationals are facing removal proceedings in US while 820 Indians are in detention centres across the US. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has provided this information in response to a North American Punjabi Association (NAPA) plea under the Freedom of Information Act.
NAPA executive director Satnam Singh Chahal, who had on May 20 sought information about the number of Indian nationals facing deportation process and the number of Indian nationals detained in US/ICE jails or facilities, voiced the possibility of majority of them being Punjabis.
In its response on July 23, ICE has revealed that till June 6, 2020, 33,593 Indian nationals were facing removal proceedings. The data provided by ICE also showed that 820 persons were lodged in different detention centres across US till June 6, 2020. The centres with significant number of Indians include Adams County Detention Center with 121, Jackson Parish Correctional Center (38), Karnes County Residential Center( 41). LaSalle Correction Center Olla (40), Winn Correctional Institute
(66) while the remaining facilities have less than 20 Indians.
Chahal said it was not clear which state in India the detainees were from. "It is usually believed that most of them would be from Punjab from where there have been scores of cases of illegal human trafficking," he said, adding that "more than 15 Punjabi youths have been missing since several years due to this illegal human smuggling".
Information procured by Chahal earlier had revealed that by October 19, 2019, there were 3,017 Indian nationals in ICE detention centres across the country, out of which 2,933 were males and 84 were females. Similarly, at that time ICE had identified 156 Indian males in detention as convicted criminals, while 86 had pending criminal charges. Six Indian women in ICE custody were deemed convicted criminals, while one had pending criminal charges at that time, Chahal said.