The state of Arizona leads the country when it comes to the number of deportation hearings for immigrants from India, revealed a study of Department of Homeland Security data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse  (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

The analysis showed that, the state had 709 deportation hearings for Indians during the first quarter 2016. There were 1,185 deportation cases held in 2015.

Maria Jones, an immigration lawyer in Phoenix, said that, “I was totally shocked when I saw and studied a little bit about the numbers that involved immigrants from India.”

“India is a place where things are happening, you have a huge democracy, an IT explosion, the Bollywood phenomenon,” said Michael Kugelman, the senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “That’s all true, but you also have a lot of problems in India.” “Sikhs have been prosecuted in their homeland of Punjab for years,” Kugelman said.

“There’s been a history of tensions and disagreements between the Sikh community and Hindus, among others,” he said. “India is a country where historically, and in the present day as well, religious minorities tend to suffer significant amounts of discrimination.”

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, said that, “If you see asylum for how it’s originally written into the law, which is for someone who’s desperate, someone whose life is in danger if they return, that’s probably not the case for most Sikhs.”  “Plus, they may be able to move somewhere else in India to find a job.”

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Nandini