Deportation Uproar in India Threatens Trump’s Trade and H-1B Talks

India’s politics are in an uproar after President Donald Trump brusquely repatriated a tiny share of the almost 1 million Indian migrants who have illegally sneaked into American communities.

The uproar complicates fast-track trade negotiations where major business groups are pushing Trump to accept more Indian white-collar H-1B migrants in a swap for Indian acceptance of more U.S. exports. For example, India is removing tariffs that reduce motorcycle sales by the investor-owned and troubled Harley-Davidson company.

Trump’s first repatriation flight to India on February 4 carried 104 illegal migrants who were shackled to their seats as they were flown back home in a military cargo aircraft. The videos of the drop-off caused much TV drama and outrage among Indian nationalists.

“We … shall not tolerate the humiliation of Indian nationals,” tweeted Mallikarjun Kharge, who leads the opposition party in the upper house of India’s parliament, which is called the Rajya Sabha. He added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government “must come out with a detailed statement on the deportation and why did we not send our own planes to bring back the Indians, with dignity and respect, instead of a military plane landing on our soil.”

The Indian uproar mirrors the uproar in Colombia when the United States sent a group of Colombian illegal migrants home via a military cargo aircraft.

But the Indian uproar is just a small hint of the future drama that may come if Trump keeps his pro-American migration promises in the face of India’s economic plan to export millions more blue-collar and white-collar Indians to the United States.

Since 1990, India’s economic strategy of migration has been very successful for India — and for Wall Street.

The strategy has spiked Wall Street’s profits and stock values by replacing millions of well-paid American white-collar professionals with cheaper Indian H-1B workers — who eagerly work as accountants, lab technicians, managers, salesmen, medical technicians, software writers, and recruiters in the hope of staying in the United States and of getting U.S. legal status for their families and descendants.

The flood of legalized H-1B, L-1, OPT, and J-1 white-collar Indians has also carried a huge number of other Indians into America. They include E-3 visa franchise operators and hotel managers, and almost 1 million illegal workers who take low-wage jobs in the expanding array of Indian-run businesses within the U.S. consumer economy.

At least 4 million people from India now live in the United States and send an ocean of money back to India. In 2024, for example, Indians working in the United States sent roughly $120 billion in remittances back to their homeland. A large share of that migrant money was taxed and used by the government to buy products from American companies, including energy, services, and aircraft.

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The escalating mutual anger complicates the high-stakes negotiations between Trump and Modi, who are slated to meet next week at the White House. They will meet on February 12 and 13 to talk about the entwined issues of trade and migration.

Trump and Modi are friendly to each other — but Trump wants more trade, while Modi wants more migration.

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