Punjab: Akashdeep Singh, 23, from Rajatal village in Amritsar wanted to settle abroad and lead a “successful life” just like his cousin who had migrated to Canada a few years ago. However, IELTS was a big hurdle which he could not clear despite repeated attempts. He then went to Dubai and struck a deal with a travel agent for Rs 55 lakh to fly to the US. He is now among the 333 Indians who have been deported from the US to India in the last two weeks. Akashdeep and many others like him, who dream of going abroad, are grappling with the growing business of illegal immigration, which is now a multi-billion rupee business and spread across several countries and continents in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. Agents with a “good reputation in illegal immigration” charge anywhere between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 80 lakh. If on an average a deportee has paid at least Rs 40 lakh to such unscrupulous agents, it means that 333 deportees have paid Rs 133 crore. “This is just a small matter. The government should conduct a thorough investigation into the channels and means through which these deportees fell into the trap of unauthorised agents, so that the financial trail can be traced,” says retired banker Anil Vinayak. When the Tribune team examined various FIRs lodged against travel agents, it was found that many deportees took the “donkey” aka “donkey” route — notorious for extremely dangerous journeys — and travelled through more than two dozen cities and over 10 countries to finally reach the US. One such FIR details how a Punjabi youth who had paid over Rs 60 lakh to his agent was taken to Guyana, then to Guyana, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Capurganá, Panama City, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras Cancun, Sancuba and Tijuana.
“As more money is exchanging hands and agents in every country are well connected, new routes have emerged. Indians without proper documents try to enter Central America (countries like Panama and Guatemala) to reach the US via countries like Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador or Colombia, even France. Mexico is a tough country to enter directly and you can be easily arrested on the slightest suspicion”, said a travel agent who earlier dealt with the dinky route and has now stopped operations for the last almost six years. Another agent who continues to “provide assistance” to those seeking to reach the US says that over the past few months his agency network has been using countries such as the UK, Italy, Germany, Spain and Turkey, and then heading to Central America on transit or visitor visas. “This way they escape the jungles and also take air travel and car travel for most part of their journey until they attempt to enter the US,” he said.
The Darien Gap route
According to the police, many deportees have told painful stories of how they were taken through the ‘Darien Gap route’, a remote, roadless area covering both Panamanian and Colombian territory, which is the only possible land crossing between South and Central America. The Darien jungle is as remarkable as it is inaccessible, stretching for more than 60 miles through swamps, dense rainforest, fast-flowing rivers and mountains. “Getting there, surviving and then hiking about 50 kilometres through dense rainforest from Colombia to Panama City is the route we tell clients about in advance,” he says.
