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311 Indians deported by Mexico arrive in Delhi

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NEW DELHI: With the US tightening H1B visa norms amid a significant peak drop in the number of US visas being issued, there is a possibility that some Indian software engineers may also be trying their luck to enter the land of opportunity via illegal routes in Mexico and Hungary, IANS has learnt.


On Friday, Mexican immigration authorities deported 311 Indians — 310 men and one woman — who reached New Delhi on Friday evening, which is the largest ever deportation in the Mexican history of the trans-Atlantic deportation by air.


India has been urging the US to be more liberal in issuing H1B visas to engineers and IT professionals but to no avail. Owing to this, tech companies headquartered in the US are facing a dearth of talented software engineers since the H1B visa norms were tightened.


This may have led Indian techies to take dangerous routes usually taken by undocumented immigrants to reach the US.


The most popular route to enter the US illegally for Indians in Mexico is to hitch rides and reach the western city of Guadalajara. The other popular spot for Indians to enter the US illegally is Budapest in Hungary. US officials recently uncovered a fraud scheme that has allowed foreign nationals to enter the US under false identities, via using vulnerabilities in Hungary’s passport system.


An email sent to the IT industry’s apex body Nasscom on the development went unanswered.


The Ministry of External Affairs was yet to issue a statement. A government source, however, said India does not support illegal immigration anywhere but in case of Indians who are documented immigrants and face issues anywhere including in the US, the Indian government is with them.


According to Pew Research, at the US-Mexico border, there have been more apprehensions of non-Mexicans than Mexicans every year since fiscal 2016.


“Non-Mexicans accounted for 62 per cent of apprehensions at the southwest border in fiscal 2018, marking the third consecutive year in which they outnumbered Mexicans,” said the report.


— IANS


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