India aims to expel all illegal migrants, interior minister says

[Swordsmyth]

India will identify and deport illegal immigrants from across the country, the interior minister said on Wednesday, stepping up a campaign that critics say could stoke religious tension and further alienate minority Muslims.An exercise to identify alien immigrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh has been going on in the northeastern state of Assam for years, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist-led government has taken it up in earnest.
The campaign was a key issue in this year's general election, won by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist party.
Home Minister Amit Shah told parliament the government would not limit its efforts to Assam, but would come down hard on illegal immigrants anywhere.
"Illegal immigrants living on every inch of this country will be deported according to the law," Shah told the upper house of parliament.
Shah, seen as a Hindu nationalist hardliner and a possible future replacement for Modi in the top job, called illegal migrants "termites" eating into Assam's resources during the election campaign.


More at: https://news.yahoo.com/india-aims-ex...131746817.html

[TheTexan]

Why would anyone illegally immigrate to such a literally $#@!ty country. Wow.

[TheTexan]

I do like their idea of kicking out muslims though.

[Swordsmyth]

Why would anyone illegally immigrate to such a literally $#@!ty country. Wow.

Just think how bad the countries they came from must be.

[Swordsmyth]

I do like their idea of kicking out muslims though.

[Origanalist]

"Illegal immigrants living on every inch of this country will be deported according to the law,

Again, a nice thought, but it's not going to happen. They probably are as far behind the eight ball as we are.

[Origanalist]

Again, a nice thought, but it's not going to happen. They probably are as far behind the eight ball as we are.

India passes historic citizenship bill that excludes Muslims

Critics say the law undermines the country’s secular constitution. The opposition party has described it as driven by “bigotry and narrow-minded exclusion” and it has been condemned by rights activists and Islamic groups, sparking violent protests.

The bill passed the upper house of India’s parliament with 125 members supporting it and 105 opposing on Wednesday, a day after clearing the lower house. It now awaits presidential assent, a formality before becoming law.

The decision came after two days of violent protests in Assam state’s Dibrugarh district , during which police fired rubber bullets, tear gas and used batons against demonstrators, who lit fires and blocked highways and railway lines.

Introducing the bill in the upper house on Wednesday, home minister Amit Shah insisted the bill was not anti-Muslim because it did not affect the existing path to citizenship available to all communities.

It seeks to address the difficulties of Hindus and other minorities who suffered persecution in Muslim-majority Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, Mr Shah said.

His justification was echoed by prime minister Narendra Modi, who defended the bill as “in line with India’s centuries-old ethos of assimilation and belief in humanitarian values”.

Critics say the bill fits into Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist agenda, and have been joined in their criticism by the US government’s commission for international religious freedom (CIRF).

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The CIRF criticised the bill as going against “India’s rich history of secular pluralism and the Indian Constitution,” and pledged to seek US sanctions against Mr Shah if it passed through parliament.

The US commission’s statement “is neither accurate nor warranted”, a spokesperson for India’s External Affairs Ministry said.

“Such an initiative should be welcomed, not criticised, by those who are genuinely committed to religious freedom,” he asserted.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9242591.html