“Now no one will go to us”

Gurpreath Singh was handcuffed, legs jumping and a chain tied around the waist. The US border patrol threatened on the asphalt in Texas, to the military transport aircraft of the C-17.

It was February 3, and after a month’s journey he realized that his dream of life had ended. He was deported back to India. “It seemed that the earth slipped out of my feet,” he said.

The 39 -year -old Gurpret was one of the thousands of Indians, who had carried out life in recent years and crossed the continents to illegally enter the US across their southern border when they sought to avoid the unemployment crisis.

There are about 725,000 unregistered Indian immigrants in the US, the third largest group of Mexicans and Elvadors, according to the latest Pew Research data in 2022.

Now Gurpreet has become one of the first undocumented Indians to be sent home because President Donald Trump has taken the post, promising to make mass deportations with priority.

GURPREET intended to make a statement of asylum based on threats he said in India Executive order from Trump to turn away people without giving them a hell’s hearings – He said he was removed without consideration.

About 3,700 Indians were sent back to charter and commercial flights during President Biden’s stay, but recent images of detainees in the Trump administration caused outrage in India.

The US Border Patrol has released images on the Internet video with a brazen choral soundtrack and a warning: “If you are not illegally rested, you will be removed.”

“We were sitting in trafficking and shackles for more than 40 hours. Even women were linked equally. Only children were free,” Gurpret BBC said in India. “We were not allowed to get up. If we wanted to use the toilet, we were accompanied by US forces, and only one of our handcuffs was shot.”

Opposition parties protested in parliament, saying that the Indian departers were given “inhuman and derogatory treatment”. “There are a lot of talk about how the Prime Minister of Modi and Modi Trump are good friends. Then, why Mr. Modi allowed it?” said Gandhi Vada, a key opposition leader.

Gurpret said: “The Indian government had to say something on our behalf. They had to order the US to deport the way it was done before, without handcuffs and chains.”

The press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India said the government caused these problems with the United States, and that, as a result, the following deportation flights were not handcuffed and undermined.

But on earth, the intimidated images and rhetoric of President Trump seems to have the desired effect.

“Nobody will try to go to the United States now through this illegal” donkey “while Trump is in power,” Gurpret said.

In the long run, this may depend on whether there are constant deportations, but so far many Indian throws called “agents” have gone on hiding, fearing the raid on their Indian police.

Gurpret said the Indian authorities demanded the number of the agent he used when he landed, but the smuggler could no longer reach.

“But I do not blame them. We wanted and went to the well. They didn’t come to us,” Gurpret said.

While the official title figure puts unemployment rate is only 3.2%It hides a more unstable picture for many Indians. Only 22% of workers have regular wages, most engage in self-employment, and almost a fifth “unpaid assistants”, including women working in family business.

“We leave India just because we are forced. If I got a job that paid me even 30,000 rupees (270 pounds of sterling/340 dollars) a month, my family would receive.

“You can say everything you want about the economy on paper, but you need to see reality on Earth. There is no way to work or do business for us.”

The Gupreet Automobile Company was one of the small businesses that depended on the cash that was badly affected when the Indian government withdrew 86% of the currency in a four -hour appeal. He said he was not paid to his clients and had no money to keep the case for afloat. Another small business he created by managing logistics for other companies was also unable to lock COVID, he said.

He said he tried to get visas to go to Canada and the UK, but his applications were rejected.

He then took all his savings, sold the plot of the land he belonged to him, and borrowed money from relatives to raise 4 million rupees (45,000 dollars/36,000 pounds) to pay the smuggler to organize his journey, Gurpret told us.

On August 28, 2024, he flew from India to Guyana in South America to start a difficult journey to the US.

Gurpret noted all the stops he made on his map on his phone. From Guyana, he traveled to Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, mainly by buses and cars, partly on the boat, and briefly on the plane – transferred from one person to another to another, detained and released by the authorities several times.

From Colombia, smugglers tried to get to Mexico so that he could avoid crossing the terrible Darin Gap. But Colombian immigration did not allow him to sit on the flight, so he had to make a dangerous hike through the jungle.

The dense space of the tropical forests between Colombia and Panama, the gap of Darien can be crossed only on foot, risking accidents, diseases and attacks of criminal groups. Last year, 50 people were killed by making a crossing.

“I wasn’t scared. I was an athlete, so I thought I would be fine. But it was the most violent section,” Gurpret said. “We passed five days through the jungle and the rivers. In many parts, wandering along the river, the water lifted to my chest.”

Each group was accompanied by smuggler – either “Donker”, as Gurpret and other migrants refer to them, the word seemingly derived from the term “ass” used for illegal migration travel.

At night, they will throw away tents in the jungle, eat some food they wore, and tried to rest.

“It was raining all the days when we were there. We were poured to our bones,” he said. In the first two days, they were guided by three mountains. After that, he said that they should go along the route marked with blue plastic packages associated with smugglers.

“My feet began to feel lead. My nails on the feet were hacked, and my hands were cleared and were spikes. However, we were not faced with any robbers.”

When they reached Panama, Gurpret said he and about 150 others were detained by border holding officials in a close prison center. After 20 days, they were released, he said, and from there it took him more than a month to get to Mexico, passing through Costa -Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.

Gurpret said they had been waiting for almost a month in Mexico until the opportunity to cross the border in the US near San Diego.

“We did not scale the wall. There is a mountain we moved next to it. And there is a razor’s wire that the Donker cut,” he said.

Gurprite entered the US on January 15, five days before President Trump took over – believing that he did it in time before the borders became impassable and the rules became tougher.

Once in San Diego, he surrendered to the US border patrol, and then was detained by immigration and customs execution (ICE).

During the Biden administration, illegal or unregistered migrants appeared before an immigration officer who would do a previous interview to determine if everyone had a shelter. While most Indians moved out of economic need, some also left Fearful of persecution from their religious or social origin or their sexual orientation.

When they cleaned the interview, they were released before the asylum decision from the Immigration Judge. The process will often take years, but they were allowed to remain in the US.

This is what Gurpret thought, it would happen. He planned to find a job in the grocery store, and then enter the freight transport, the business he is familiar with.

Instead, less than three weeks after he entered the United States, he found himself leading to this aircraft C-17 and returned to where he started.

In his small house in the Sultanpur -Lodi, the city in the Northern State of Punjab, Gurpret is now trying to find a job to pay off the money he has borrowed and is reflected for his family.

Additional reporting Aakriti Thapar