Ever thought, we have so many illegal immigrants in India? It is said there are 1.6 crore Bangladeshi Muslims in India. There have been several ten thousands Rohingyas who have almost settled in India. The lawyers from Congress are vociferously arguing the cases against Rohingya deportation.

Lets analyze the legal aspect, which laws empower the govt to act against foreigners.

We have The Foreigners Act, 1946. The Foreigners Act, 1946 is an Act of the Imperial Legislative Assembly enacted to grant the certain powers to the Interim Government of India in matters of foreigners in India. The Act was enacted before India became independent.

The Act defines a foreigner as ”a person who is not a citizen of India”. Section 9 of the Act states that, where the nationality of a person is not evident as per preceding section 8, the onus of proving whether a person is a foreigner or not, shall lie upon such person. According to the Foreigners (Report to the police) Order, 2001, made under the Foreigners Act 1946, where any person who has reason to believe that a foreigner has entered India without valid documents or is staying in India beyond the authorized period of stay accommodates such a foreigner in a premises occupied, owned or controlled by him, for whatever purpose, it shall be the duty of such a person to inform the nearest police station, within 24 hours, of the presence of such foreigner.

The Foreigners Act empowers the Indian government to detain a person until deportation back to their country of origin. It also empowers the govt to jail illegal immigrants.

The following changes in the law will greatly curb Illegal Immigration.

  1. Make amendments in the act to Jail, heavily fine the person or the person in charge of the company who gives any kind of employment to an illegal immigrant in addition to jailing the illegal foreigner. This will act as a big deterrent to builders, factories etc. who hire these illegal foreigners who typically work at lower wages. In case of companies hiring such people, make provisions for cancelling their licenses or striking off the company from Registrar of companies. This will force the employers to do a proper background check before giving such employment.
  2. Also make amendments in the act to jail the house owner who provides rental accommodation to such an illegal immigrant. This will force house owners before renting out his/her house/lodge to such people.

Without employment or accommodation, many illegal foreigners will have less motivation of moving to India. If such law is made, many Bangladeshis will leave India.

I don’t know successive govts have not done this. Probably due to pressure from lobbies who want cheap labor. China has such a law, hence we don’t hear any case of illegal immigrant in China.

Lets we all make pressure on Govt to make suitable changes in law. Controlling illegal migration is not tough actually.

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