(Image source from: The Statesman)

During Foreign Secretary of India Vijay Gokhale’s meeting with the United States Congressional leaders, the issue regarding detention of Indian students by the United States immigration authorities came up.

Representative Tom Suozzi tweeted that during the Monday meeting they talked about immigration issues and that he himself “sought everyone’s assistance regarding the Telugu students detained” by immigration authorities.

The relationship between the United States and India is one of the most important relationships the US have over the next 50 years!@IndianEmbassyUS @BradSherman @TedYoho pic.twitter.com/FWN9SQoXhp

— Tom Suozzi (@RepTomSuozzi) March 12, 2019

The meeting took place in the Washington office of Brad Sherman, a Democrat, who is the chairman of the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Non-Proliferation. The panel’s Ranking Republican Member Ted Yoho was also present.

As many as 129 Indians, most of them from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were among the 130 foreign students arrested for enrolling at a fake university in February that officials had set up in a sting operation against misuse of visas.

Officials allege that they had enrolled in the institution knowing that it did not hold classes but was used only to facilitate visas.

However, an eminent Indian American attorney alleged that the Department of Homeland Security knowingly allowed a fake university to be set up and misled students sitting hundreds of miles away in another country.

California-based immigration attorney Anu Peshawaria, a day after the State Department blamed Indian students for the mass detention and possible deportation from the United States for registering themselves in a fake university established by the Department of Homeland Security said that the undercover operation had devastating consequences for hundreds of Indian students.

India had sought consular access and has given “top priority” to its students detained by the U.S. authorities and has impressed upon the Trump administration the need to address the situation at the earliest.

On Tuesday, Gokhale attended the India-U.S. Strategic Dialogue with David Hale, the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in Washington.

He is scheduled to continue the dialogue on Wednesday with Andrea Thompson, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs.

By Sowmya Sangam