A US military aircraft has departed for India with undocumented Indian migrants on board, in line with President Donald Trump’s intensified efforts to deport illegal immigrants, according to news agency Reuters.
This marks the first military deportation flight to India as part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown.
An official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, confirmed that a C-17 military aircraft left for India, a journey expected to take over 24 hours.
Pentagon has facilitated flights for the deportation of more than 5,000 migrants from El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California, with previous military flights transporting migrants to Guatemala, Peru, and Honduras.
Trump initiated the military deportation programme last week under an emergency immigration directive, dispatching six planeloads of migrants to Latin America.
However, only four of those flights landed successfully—all in Guatemala—after Colombia refused to allow two US C-17 cargo planes to land, instead opting to use its own aircraft to retrieve its nationals.
"For the first time in history, we are locating and loading illegal aliens into military aircraft and flying them back to the places from which they came," Trump told reporters last month, underscoring his administration’s stringent approach to immigration enforcement.
The US president had earlier stated, following a conversation with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that India would "do what’s right" regarding the repatriation of its undocumented nationals.
Bloomberg News has reported that approximately 18,000 Indian migrants have been identified as illegally residing in the US.
Indians also constitute a significant portion of recipients of H-1B skilled worker visas issued by the US.
The deportation drive aligns with Trump’s long-standing pledge to expel "millions and millions" of undocumented migrants. Upon assuming office, he declared a national emergency at the southern border and secured congressional approval for a bill mandating the detention and deportation of unauthorised migrants charged with certain crimes.
During his campaign, he had vowed to initiate the "largest deportation operation in American history" if re-elected.
Trump has increasingly relied on the military to execute his immigration policies, deploying troops to the US-Mexico border, using military bases to house migrants, and employing military aircraft for deportation.
However, the cost of these operations has drawn scrutiny. According to Reuters, a recent deportation flight to Guatemala cost an estimated $4,675 per migrant—over five times the $853 price of a first-class commercial ticket from El Paso, as reported by AFP.
This cost also surpasses that of a typical commercial charter flight operated by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
As Trump intensifies his immigration enforcement measures, the use of military resources for deportation is likely to remain a contentious issue in both domestic and international discourse.
