In a first, India deports 7 Rohingya immigrants to Myanmar

In a first, India deports 7 Rohingya immigrants to Myanmar

News:

1. For the first time, India has deported seven Rohingya immigrants to Myanmar.

Important Facts:

2. Immigrants were staying in India since 2012 illegally in Assam and since then they were lodged in Assam jail after court convicted them under the Foreigners Acts.
3. Burmese Army organized an attack on Rohingya in 2012 which has led them to migrate in different part of the world.
4. Chief Judicial Magistrate, Cachar, convicted them of violating The Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, and sent them to prison for three months.
5. Supreme Court had allowed deportation of the seven people to Myanmar as illegal immigrants and have been accepted by their country of origin as citizens.
6. Data on number of Rohingya in India:

• There are more than 14,000 UNHCR-registered Rohingya in India.
• Security agencies estimate 40,000 Rohingya living illegally in India
• They are settled in Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad, and Delhi-NCR, besides the states of Haryana, UP, and Rajasthan.

7. Legal Provisions in the India dealing with Refugees:

• It does not currently have a national law on refugees.
• India is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention and 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees
• In 2011, the Union government circulated to all states and Union Territories a Standard Operating Procedure to deal with foreign nationals who claimed to be refugees.
• The Foreigners Act, 1946, gives the central government the right to deport a foreign national.
• India have Mission Mode Project on Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT) to facilitate improved tracking of foreigners.
• The power to identify and deport foreign nationals who are in India illegally has been delegated to state governments, Union Territories and the Home Ministry’s Bureau of Immigration

8. Who are considered an illegal immigrant in India?

• Foreign national who enters India on valid travel documents and stays beyond their validity.
• Foreign national who enters without valid travel documents.

9. How Illegal Migrants are a threat to the Nation?

• They infringe on the rights of Indian citizens.
• More vulnerable for getting recruited by terrorist organizations.

10. Data on Repatriation:

• Approximately 330 Pakistanis and approximately 1,770 Bangladeshi nationals have been repatriated during the last three years

11. However recently, Indian PM has assured the PM of Bangladesh, that the people who are left out in National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam would not be deported to the country though they will be considered as a illegal immigrants.
12. Difference Between Illegal Migrants and Refugees: