By Vijaita Singh
The government has formulated a new deportation policy under which all States have been asked to set up a special task force in each district to “detect, identify and deport/send back illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar”, and provide a monthly status report on foreigners who are missing or overstaying their visas.
States have been asked to operationalise “holding centres/camps” with a 10-feet-high boundary ringed with barbed wires, to restrict the movement of such undocumented migrants till they are deported or “sent back” to Bangladesh or Myanmar, according to the policy framed by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
An upper limit of 90 days has been fixed to verify the antecedents of suspected Bangladeshi or Myanmarese nationals, if they claim to be a resident of another State. Private buildings could also be hired to run as holding centres, if government land was not available, the Ministry said. States have been asked to upload documents, including Aadhaar cards, driving licenses, and PAN cards obtained by illegal migrants on a portal, so that they could be cancelled, and the person “blacklisted” in government records.
After the regime change in Bangladesh in August 2024, police across the country were asked by the MHA to detect Bangladeshis who had illegally entered the country and were living here on forged documents. The drive assumed momentum after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, 2025, and Operation Sindoor on May 7, 2025. In some cases, undocumented Bangladeshis were flown on Indian Air Force (IAF) planes and sent to Bangladesh via the land border. At least seven West Bengal residents who were pushed to Bangladesh by the Border Security Force (BSF) on suspicion of being Bangladeshis were brought back to India due to the intervention of the West Bengal Government.
A major part of the policy that was shared with the States in February this year, a copy of which has been seen by The Hindu, reiterates and consolidates the existing guidelines with a separate chapter dedicated to “illegally staying Bangladeshis/Myanmar nationals in the country”. The guidelines on “holding centres” will be applicable to other foreigners awaiting deportation, and those declared foreigners by Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs). FTs are unique to Assam.
States have been directed to immediately initiate nationality verification of arrested foreigners so that travel documents are ready upon the completion of judicial proceedings, enabling expeditious deportation.
“After deportation, proposals for blacklisting of such foreign nationals to prevent their future entry into India may be sent to the Bureau of Immigration,” the MHA said. “Foreigners Identification Portal (FIP)” has been launched to capture the biometric and demographic details of “illegal foreigners”, it said.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
