Latest news with #ImmigrationandForeignersAct
Time of India
24-05-2025
- Time of India
Family of nine from Myanmar booked for illegally staying in Unnao, procuring Aadhaar
Kanpur: The Unnao police on Friday lodged an FIR against Myanmar national Mohd Sahil and his eight family members for staying illegally in India and violating the provisions of the Immigration and Foreigners Act. As per the complaint, lodged by Balu Ghat outpost in-charge Gajendra Singh, Sahil, his siblings Anwar, Habibullah, and Hashmat, father Mohd Yahya, mother Rahima Begum, sister Shenuara Begum, brother-in-law Junaid, wife Ajida, and daughter-in-law Noor Qaida have been residing in Unnao's Shuklaganj area for eight years since leaving Myanmar, without valid documentation. They have also been booked for allegedly procuring Aadhaar card, with help from a local corporator, who later denied issuing any certificate endorsing their nationality. The investigating team have now requested details from the Aadhaar-issuing authority regarding certification. "We have contacted the Lucknow Centre. If we get to know about any link of others in it, they will be included in the investigation," said Kotwali inspector-in-charge Pramod Kumar Mishra. In view of the allegation, the local police have been asked to keep an eye on the family. The Unnao police, which visited the family on Thursday, questioned the family and documented their statements. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Trade Bitcoin & Ethereum – No Wallet Needed! IC Markets Start Now Undo "While no valid documents were found during the search in their house, analysis of phone records showed Mohd Sahil and his brothers primarily contacting individuals from Shuklaganj and Unnao," said DCP East Satyajit Gupta. While the Rohingya family has expressed intentions to relocate to Bangladesh, citing relatives there and safety concerns for Muslims in Myanmar, police said they may be arrested soon. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Brother's Day wishes , messages and quotes !
Indian Express
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
A new immigration law reflects India's rising paranoia over the ‘undesirable outsider'
Written by Aashish Yadav and Angshuman Choudhury 'India is not a dharamshala' — that's how the Supreme Court responded on May 16 to a petition by a Sri Lankan Tamil individual to not be deported to his home country out of fear of persecution. Remarkably, this is the exact language that Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently used in the Lok Sabha to defend the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which came into effect in April. This dovetailing of the judiciary and the executive on the issue of immigration control and refugee rights reflects a troubling anti-humanitarian flare-up in the Indian state apparatus, conspicuous in a series of recent events. Four days before the 'dharamshala' remark, another Supreme Court bench called media reports on the Indian government allegedly abandoning some 40 Rohingya refugees forcibly at sea near the southeastern coast of Myanmar 'a very beautifully crafted story'. Just over a week prior, yet another bench concluded that Rohingya refugees were 'illegal immigrants' who could be deported as per due process. However, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma recently announced that India had now begun to directly 'push back' undocumented individuals and refugees into Bangladesh, instead of following legal procedures. This was not just bluster. It coincided with reports on India pushing hundreds of undocumented individuals into Bangladesh through the land borders in Assam and West Bengal, much to Dhaka's chagrin. Meanwhile, various state governments have been rounding up undocumented, mostly Bengali-speaking working-class individuals in recent days while the Centre seeks a countrywide verification of the identities of suspected illegal immigrants within 30 days and subsequently, deportation of those found to be undocumented. These developments cannot be seen in isolation and must be placed in a threefold context. First, they mirror a global surge in anti-immigrant rhetoric and action, accompanied by a hardening of border control regimes. The Trump administration's actions against both undocumented and documented immigrants in the US have been the most pronounced manifestation of this xenophobic surge. Second, the anti-immigrant and anti-refugee actions come on the heels of India's Operation Sindoor against Pakistan and the attendant anxiety over national security and borders. This phase saw the Narendra Modi government not only deporting Pakistani nationals from India, but also adopting a parallel, allusive process of expelling a broad set of 'others' who have long been profiled as threats to India's internal security. Bengali-speaking Muslims and Rohingya seem to be first among these unequals. Third, they are synchronised with the Modi government's decision to reform the legal regime on immigration control. The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, under the garb of streamlining immigration laws, sets new norms of entry, stay and exit while giving unprecedented powers to central immigration authorities to enforce them. It is the second and third contexts that Indian civil society should be most concerned about. The Home Minister has framed the Immigration and Foreigners Act as an outcome of the Modi government's 'compassion, sensitivity, and awareness of threats to the nation'. But, by vesting extraordinary powers in a central bureaucratic node — the Bureau of Immigration — and introducing vague norms of immigration control, the new law creates an arbitrary legal regime with broad executive discretion. For starters, the act is littered with excessive delegation of power. Rather than formulating clear provisions through any parliamentary process, it provides sweeping powers to the Centre to specify any new ground for the entry of foreigners and even restrict their activities within the country. Under this regime, such executive decisions would be made without any institutional oversight, leaving no recourse to a statutory remedy. This is unlike the multi-tiered immigration appeal systems most leading democracies have, including those with strong immigration laws. Particularly concerning is the act's provision on restricting the entry of a 'specified class or description of foreigner', which could potentially justify a blanket travel embargo akin to US President Donald Trump's 2017 ban on nationals of Muslim-majority countries. The law also gives immigration officers carte blanche to restrict the entry of foreign nationals to India on vague grounds of national security and public health, among others, without providing any concrete reasons. In recent years, the government has adopted a punitive immigration stance against foreign journalists and academics critical of the regime. This includes the deportation of a British professor in 2024 and the revocation of her OCI status this week, and similar actions against a French journalist and a Swedish academic. If these actions are to be taken as precedent, the government could weaponise the new law to deter and expel 'undesirable' foreign nationals. Beyond standard border control, the act constricts an already restricted asylum regime, including for stateless refugees (like the Rohingya). Not only does the law remain silent on these vulnerable groups, but it also strengthens the legal rationale to expel them from or deny them entry into Indian territory through its arbitrary provisions on 'national security' and expansive government discretion. The new law fundamentally fails to address a critical gap in the Indian legal regime — the absence of a comprehensive, protection-centric asylum law. Instead, it has fallen on the heels of the discriminatory CAA and its opaque procedures, disingenuously painting it as a humanitarian, pro-refugee law. More concerningly, the government has signalled its intention to terminate the long-standing policy of recognising UNHCR refugee cards, which is the primary form of identification that refugees in India have. These cards are issued after a meticulous vetting process to verify the claims of each person. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court, too, has dismissed the value of these cards, most recently in a Rohingya deportation-related hearing on May 8. Clearly, Trump's bellicose immigration policy echoes in many provisions of the act. But, its most serious radiating effect has been felt in the recent deportations in India. Both actions reveal a paradox that, despite passing the new act, the government did not invoke it in the deportation of Pakistani citizens after the Pahalgam attack. In the case of Rohingyas, the government appears to totally circumvent any legal procedure. In that sense, the law itself appears to be overshadowed by extra-legal interests over national security and domestic politics. What is perhaps more troubling is that the Supreme Court has indirectly supported the systematic and incremental erosion of refugee rights by not just adopting narrow interpretations of fundamental rights, but also refusing to critically scrutinise the rhetorical positions and actions of the executive. Instead, it has chosen to simply recapitulate the hostility that the government has shown towards refugees and other vulnerable groups that are routinely profiled as 'infiltrators' without any evidence. Aashish Yadav is a doctoral candidate at the University of Melbourne. Angshuman Choudhury, formerly at the Centre for Policy Research, is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Asian Studies jointly at the National University of Singapore and King's College London. Views are personal
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Time of India
Korean national living illegally in India for 6 yrs held at Raxaul
Motihari: A joint team of police and immigration officials on Sunday arrested a from a hotel at Raxaul while he was preparing to enter Nepal through the India-Nepal border. Police after quizzing Kim Yang Dey produced him in a Motihari court on Monday and remanded him to jail custody. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now SDPO of Raxaul, Dhirendra Kumar, said Kim Yang was holding a passport of South Korea and had been living illegally in India for the last six years without valid documents. He had plans to return back to his country via Nepal. The police have lodged a case against him under Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 in Raxaul police station, he added. During interrogation Kim Yang revealed that he came to India on an employment visa in 2017 and got a job as a project manager in an engineering firm at Kanchipuram in Tamil Nadu. His passport number was issued on Jan 9, 2017 and an Indian visa was given on Jan 20, 2017, whose validity expired on Jan 19, 2018. He, however, claimed that the visa was extended twice till 2021, but he could not provide any proof of this. Despite expiry of his visa, he was living illegally in India, said the SDPO. He further said he met a woman from Manipur on social media and was in a live-in relationship with her since 2019. A girl was born out of their relationship on Feb 27, 2023. He claimed that he later married the Manipur girl and was living in India with her support. The police, however, said legal proof of his marriage with the Manipur woman was not produced by him.
Time of India
17-05-2025
- Time of India
Arrested Chinese national sent to jail
Madhubani: A Chinese national Yushicho, who along with two Nepalese people, was arrested by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel during a routine patrolling near Chor Bazar, Ladania, in Madhubani district on Friday, was sent to jail on Saturday for violation of the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025. Yushicho was found attempting to enter India without valid travel documents, said Dhananjay Kumar, SHO of Ladania. The Nepalese nationals were however released after interrogation. He was found trying to enter into India without valid travel documents, said Dhananjay Kumar, SHO, Ladania, adding the Nepalese nationals were let off. According to police sources, the SSB team — led by Vikrant Kumar, in charge of the Ladania border outpost — acted swiftly and detained all the three. After completing the necessary formalities, they were handed over to the police. A team from Nepal's Armed Police Force (APF), led by DSP Shankar Tiwari, also arrived at the Ladania police station to coordinate with Indian authorities for interrogating the three, sources added.
Time of India
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Canadian national held for entering India without visa
Motihari: A Canadian national was arrested by the Sashashtra Seema Bal (SSB) at the Maitri bridge near the integrated customs check post in Raxaul at the India-Nepal border on Friday evening while attempting to enter India from Nepal without a valid visa. The Raxaul police have lodged an FIR against him under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025. He was sent to jail on Saturday. The man, identified via his passport as Harprit Singh, was travelling from Nepal by taxi. According to immigration officials, he was detained by SSB personnel at the gate of the customs check post and handed over to immigration authorities for further verification. During interrogation, Harprit disclosed that he was a native of Kapurthala in Punjab. He said he had been working as a labourer in Canada for the past 11 years before returning to his village via Mumbai in Feb 2023. Since then, he said, he had remained in India. He later decided to return to Canada via Nepal and travelled to Kathmandu by taxi, but was denied an air ticket for not holding a valid Nepalese visa. Kishan Kumar Paswan, station house officer (SHO) of Raxaul police station, said, "Harprit has a Canadian passport but does not have a visa for India. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Iraq: New Small Electric Car For Seniors. Prices Might Surprise You. Electric Cars | Search Ads Undo In such a situation, it is highly suspicious and a matter for investigation." A senior official from a security agency posted at the Raxaul border said, "How he got Canadian citizenship while being an Indian citizen is under scrutiny. According to information, Harprit had been staying in Nepal for a long time with some objective." Last week, Khalistani separatist Kashmiri Singh Galwaddi from Ludhiana, Punjab, who had been hiding in Nepal for the past two years, was arrested near Motihari by the National Investigation Agency (NIA). Security agencies suspect that Harprit may have been in contact with Galwaddi during his time in Nepal. Nepalese police are also investigating the case to assist their Indian counterparts, sources said. Following Operation Sindoor, the 1,751-km-long India-Nepal border has been under heightened surveillance to prevent infiltration. Suspicious people are being closely monitored. According to Intelligence Bureau sources, over 12 terrorists from Bangladesh and Pakistan are attempting to enter Bihar via Nepal, but Indian security forces remain on high alert. It may be recalled that four Chinese nationals and an American were arrested at the Raxaul immigration office within a fortnight. In the past year, six other Chinese nationals have also been arrested at Raxaul.
