Mai Pagal Nahi Hoo: The Law on Deportation of Criminals from One Country to Another

1. Introduction
2. The Law Behind Deportation
3. The Human Cost
4. India’s Role and the Diaspora Response
5. The Need for Reform

Introduction

On June 6 at the floor of Newark Liberty International Airport, an Indian student was handcuffed and visibly distraught, the video clip which went viral on the internet showed him with tears streaming down his face as he sobbed out in Hindi, "Main pagal nahi hoon" which roughly translates into "I am not mad."

Four words, recorded by Indian-American businessman Kunal Jain on video, have since resounded well beyond the terminal's walls. They were not merely a private cry of anguish but a moment demanding accountability for the legal, moral, and emotional price of deportation. In its immediate aftermath, the United States Customs and Border Protection insisted that the man was being deported under lawful authority, citing a court-issued removal order.

Authorities added that the student's "behaviour was not conducive to travel," leading to his restraint and subsequent removal to a medical center. But what was witnessed by onlookers and on screens around the globe was not an unproblematic administrative enforcement of immigration policy.

It was a moment imbued with the uneasy reality of how immigration enforcement without human compassion inevitably becomes a quiet public humiliation. It calls us to consider what the law allows, what the law forgets, and what the law cannot see—the nuance of human emotion.

The Legal Architecture

The incident has to be understood within the strictures of U.S. immigration law. According to the Immigration and Nationality Act, a noncitizen who entered illegally or overstayed his visa may be placed in removal proceedings and moreover, if there is a final removal order from a court, Immigration and Customs Enforcement can remove the person.

In this incident, as per CBP and confirmed by Indian consular officials, the young man entered illegally and had used up the available legal avenues. Once a person is in line for deportation, the 8 CFR § 241 process and corresponding regulations allow detention, tracking, and—where appropriate—bodily restraint, particularly if the person is deemed to be disruptive or medically inappropriate for air transport.

But though the law authorizes actions of this kind, it leaves wide discretion in enforcement. The term "not conducive for travel," for example, is legally flexible but psychologically devastating. There is no clear test for applying when an individual's behavior necessitates cuffing him on airport terminals. More importantly, the requirement of due process, which gained hold in the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, demands equity in deportation proceedings. But when deportation is physical imprisonment without ready access to legal or psychiatric advice, due process is, at best, an afterthought.

Even within the bounds of statutory jurisdiction, such public demonstrations of restraint have been criticized previously. The Trump administration's deportation of more than 100 Indians in chains aboard military aircraft in 2020–21 was criticized in the United States and India. Most of the deportees of the operation complained to us subsequently on how their human rights were abused in transit. Although the Biden administration has officially pledged to be more humane, this episode at Newark shows the entrenched lethargy of carceral perspectives towards immigrants—particularly those being young, brown, and vulnerable.

The Human Collapse

The tale of the young man on the floor is more than overstaying one's welcome. It is the disintegration of an odyssey that starts in hope and ends in shame. Thousands of Indian students each year migrate to the United States, making heavy borrowings, emotional and financial, from their families to study and better their lives.

Many, however, fall out of status through administrative delay, visa expiration, or failed transfers to other schools. Off status, they find themselves in a legal limbo where work and return become problematic. And once the enforcement machinery is upon them, even returning home—usually a place of comfort—becomes a platform of global humiliation.

This is precisely why the video is so disturbing. The man is not violent, not aggressive—he is panicked. His screams are not the screams of a criminal resisting arrest, but of a man shocked by the sudden transition from person to object, from student to suspect. His speech, his tone, his body—all are turned into incriminating evidence against him in a system that has already pronounced its verdict.

For Kunal Jain, the witness who filmed the video, it was not just an immigration issue; it was an issue of identity. How does a system that promises opportunity and legal justice allow such public brutality at its entrance gates? For Jain, and for many like him who hold both Indian and American identities, this incident was a painful reminder of the fragility of dignity when put through bureaucratic scrutiny.

Diplomacy and Diaspora

The New York Indian Consulate, alerted to the situation, replied saying the student had been ordered deported by a court and that they were in contact with the U.S. authorities and the family. They added the student had been transferred to a hospital and that deportation would be initiated only after he was given a clean bill of health to travel. But this minimalist diplomatic reaction has already raised serious questions in India and its diaspora: where are the boundaries of consular intervention when Indian citizens are publicly embarrassed abroad?

Indian missions have previously acted in cases of abuse at the workplace, unlawful detention, and racial profiling. But the failure of visible, instant support in this case is alarming. It is not only an indicator of a shortfall in diplomatic quick response, but also in the wider machinery of student well-being. When Indian youth are being sent abroad by parents who are placing them in the invisible machinery, it is not only legal frameworks that need to be called to account but also the emotional compact between the state and the diaspora.

The diaspora's response has been loud. Social media was abuzz with demands for justice, hashtags such as #MainPagalNahiHoon trended across the world, and senior Indian-Americans, including attorneys at law, demanded an inquiry if the deportation was done in accordance with CBP's own humanitarian values. This shared moment of witnessing was not to question the authority of the U.S. to deport, but to question how that authority was exercised.

Towards a Dignified Deportation Framework

What occurred in Newark is not novel or unexampled. It is an expression of a systemic trend by which legal systems disregard emotional infrastructure. But crises of this type present the possibility of reform. To begin, immigration enforcement should be directed not merely by compliance with statute but by humanitarian monitoring. The choice to hold a person in restraint should be subject to instant review by an independent consular officer or ombudsperson. Second, Indian missions abroad need to establish quick-response legal aid
centers for citizens who are facing deportation or detention.

These centers may offer not only legal aid but medical and psychological treatment prior to repatriation. Universities need to play their role as well. Indian students are primarily falling out of status due to the lack of institutional counselling. An engaged visa-compliance counselling system would ensure that a significant portion of them never even reach the undocumented area to begin with.

Most importantly, the dialogue must change from "what the law allows" to "what justice requires.Deportation, even if required, can't be designed to seem like a public shaming. In a globe where borders are heavily guarded but dignity is not safeguarded, this video forces us to consider not just legality, but humanity. The young man in Newark had no legal right to stay in the U.S., but he had the moral right not to be broken before the world. His words—\"Main pagal nahi hoon\"—will not be remembered as a declaration of sanity, but as a plea for comprehension: I am still human. I am still human.