Kapurthala family relieved as son back from US but mortgaged house a big worry

The family came to know about Gurpreet’s deportation only after the list of the deportees was released after the US C-17 plane landed at Amritsar airport.

Gurpreet Singh, 39, of Kapurthala’s Tarf Behbal Bahadur village sneaked into the US around six months ago illegally through a donkey route. His family was in shock after hearing the news of his deportation on Wednesday morning.

Gurpreet Singh, 39, of Kapurthala’s Tarf Behbal Bahadur village

The family came to know about Gurpreet’s deportation only after the list of the deportees was released after the US C-17 plane landed at Amritsar airport.

“We didn’t have any contact with Gurpreet for the past 15 days. He entered the US in August last year. It is disheartening to see my son being sent home from the US. He went in search of a better future and greener pastures,” said his father Mohinder Singh.

His uncle Tarsem Singh said Gurpreet was sent abroad by a Ludhiana-based travel agent. “He first went to Dubai in July last year and from there he travelled to the US using donkey routes via Latin America crisscrossing Ecuador, Panama and then Mexico,” Tarsem said.

The family, which doesn’t have any agricultural land, had to mortgage their houses and take financial help from their relatives to arrange ₹45 lakh to send Gurpreet to the US in August last year. Gurpreet worked as a daily wager in Kapurthala. He was married and had two children.

“Saada bacha v mur ayea and te saada Ghar baar v chale jaana (With the return of our son, we are going to lose our house too). All our hopes are dashed now as we were hoping that Gurpreet would change the family’s fortune by repaying the family loan of nearly ₹25 lakh,” he said.

“We didn’t even know in which Gurpreet was staying in the US. Earlier, he worked in a departmental store and hardly spoke with his family. It appears that he was detained soon after (US President) Donald Trump ordered action against illegal immigrants as we didn’t have any contact with him post Lohri festival which was on January 13,” Tarsem said.

He added that Gurpreet failed to find any work in Punjab otherwise the family wouldn’t have sent him to the US. The family urged the government to provide some sort of financial support for his rehabilitation.