US announces visa restrictions on travel agencies based in India facilitating illegal immigration

The Department of State is “taking steps today to impose visa restrictions on owners, executives, and senior officials of travel agencies based and operating in India for knowingly facilitating illegal immigration to the United States”, it said.

New Delhi: President Donald Trump’s administration has now started acting against the travel agencies which facilitate illegal migration from India to the United States.

Washington, DC, on Monday started taking steps to impose visa restrictions on owners, executives, and senior officials of travel agencies based in and operating in India for knowingly facilitating illegal immigration to America, Tammy Bruce, the spokesperson of the US State Department, said.

The move came almost a fortnight after two children from Gujarat in India died when a fishing boat ferrying them, their parents and several others from Mexico to the United States illegally capsized near the shore of California.

The parents of the children survived and were admitted to a hospital. Another family of four had frozen to death while trying to cross over to the US from Canada.

“We will continue to take steps to impose visa restrictions against owners, executives, and senior officials of travel agencies to cut off alien smuggling networks,” said Bruce.

She said that the Consular Affairs and Diplomatic Security Service wings of the US missions in India worked every day across the US embassy in New Delhi and consulates in Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru to “actively identify and target those engaged in facilitating illegal immigration and human smuggling and trafficking operations”.

“Our immigration policy aims not only to inform foreign nationals about the dangers of illegal immigration to the US but also to hold accountable individuals who violate our laws, including facilitators of illegal immigration,” she said.

When Trump hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on February 13, the two leaders committed to streamlining avenues for legal mobility of students and professionals, and facilitating short-term tourist and business travel, while also aggressively addressing illegal immigration and human trafficking by taking strong action against “bad actors, criminal facilitators, and illegal immigration networks to promote mutual security for both countries”.

Since Trump returned to the White House on January 20, a total of 682 illegal migrants were deported from the US to India, according to the information provided by the government in Parliament. “The vast majority of these deportees had attempted to enter the US illegally but were apprehended at the US. border itself and thereafter deported to India after due verification,” the Ministry of External Affairs informed the Lok Sabha.

“Enforcing US immigration laws and policies is critical to upholding the rule of law and protecting Americans. This visa restriction policy is global and even applies to individuals who otherwise qualify for the Visa Waiver Program. These actions are taken pursuant to section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act,” Bruce said.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a recent report released before the Trump Administration took over revealed that while nearly 1.4 million illegal immigrants in America had been served final removal orders, about 17940 of them were citizens of India. It also noted that 2647 illegal immigrants from India were already in the detention centre.

The Pew Research Centre estimated that nearly 725,000 Indians had been illegally staying in the US in 2021 – the third such community of undocumented migrants after the Mexicans (4.1 million) and Salvadorans (800,000). As of 2021, the 10.5 million unauthorised immigrants in the United States represented about 3 per cent of the country’s total population.

The number of illegal immigrants from India encountered by the American authorities on the US borders grew from 8027 between September 2018 and October 2019 to 96917 during the corresponding period in 2022-23.

A total of 519 Indians were deported from America between November 2023 and October 2024 through commercial and chartered flights, the Ministry of External Affairs informed the Lok Sabha last month, quoting from the US government data.