Eleven unaccompanied minors were among the 303 passengers, mostly of Indian origin, on a chartered flight grounded by the French authorities Thursday, a source close to the Paris prosecutor’s office told Reuters Saturday.
The flight — operated by a Romanian charter company called Legend Airlines — was on its way to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It was grounded on suspicion of human trafficking at the Châlons Vatry airport, 150 kilometres northeast of Paris — a claim reportedly denied by the airline.
The Indian embassy in Paris confirmed Friday that it has obtained consular access to the grounded passengers, and Saturday posted on the social media platform ‘X’ that it is working with the French government on the “welfare” of the detained Indians.
Meanwhile, Liliana Bakayoko, the advocate for Legend Airlines, in a written communication, told ThePrint Saturday that the airline was not aware of the purpose of the trip and that the company that ordered the flights was a “non-European” one.
Stating that the airline had never been accused of any wrongdoing, she said, “The French authorities have released the crew and the pilots. The company has never been accused of committing a tort.” A tort refers to civil crimes resulting in legal liability for the person committing the crime.
She also confirmed that Legend Airlines had operated previous flights to Nicaragua, but could not give the exact number of passengers.
ThePrint had reported earlier that Legend Airlines had flown at least two aircraft to Managua from France since 15 December, according to Flightradar24 — a global flight tracking service. Of these, flights on 15, 16 and 20 December had been confirmed on Flightradar24 to have reached Managua from France.
ThePrint had also reported that there were suspicions that the passengers might have planned to travel to Central America to try to enter the US illegally — joining a growing number of Indians who had reportedly attempted to cross the US border via the Mexico border this year.
More Indians attempting to enter US illegally
According to data from the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the number of Indians attempting to enter the US land borders illegally increased by 51.61 percent in the 2023 American fiscal year (1 October 2022-30 September 2023), compared to the 2022 fiscal year.
The CBP had encountered a total of 96,917 Indians at the Canadian and Mexican borders, of which 41,770 had tried to enter the US via the Mexican border (the Southwest Land Border) and 30,010 via the Canadian border (the Northern Land Border). Some Indians also overstayed tourist visas after landing directly in the US or travelled through other means apart from the two land borders.
The number of unaccompanied minors attempting to enter the US increased in 2023 to 730 from 409 in 2022, while accompanied minors increased to 261 from 202 during the same period. The number of single adults who attempted to enter the US through the two land borders in 2023 reached 83,517 out of the total 96,917.
The number of Indians attempting to enter the US from the Mexican border jumped to 41,770 in 2023 from 18,308 in 2022 — a 128.15 percent, increase according to CBP data.
The first two months of the 2024 fiscal year (1 October 2023-30 September 2024) had seen a year-on-year rise in the number of Indians caught at the US land borders, with 15,940 Indians encountered in October and November 2023, compared to 13,685 in the same period in 2022, according to the CBP data.
More Indians have attempted to enter the US via the Mexican border than the Canadian border in FY 2023 and FY 2024 so far. The Central American route to the US has seen Nicaragua — a country with strained ties with the US — increasingly becoming a starting point for the trek towards the southern border of the US, according to media reports.
Route to US via Nicaragua
Nicaragua, the largest country in Central America, is bordered by Honduras to the North, the Caribbean to the East, Costa Rica to the South and the Pacific Ocean to the West.
Daniel Ortega, the President of the country since 2007, his family and the government of Nicaragua have faced pressure from the Biden administration for democratic repression.
As of March, 43 individuals — including Ortega and his wife, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, and their children — and 11 Nicaraguan companies have been sanctioned by the government of the US.
In retaliation, Ortega has opened his borders to chartered flights for individuals seeking asylum in the US, especially for those individuals from Haiti, Cuba, Africa and Asians, noted a report published in November by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The air route via Nicaragua has become increasingly popular as migrants seeking asylum in the US can skip the perilous trek through the Darién gap — a 106-kilometre trek through the forests of the gap — connecting Colombia with Panama.
Various international organisations have warned migrants against the perilous journey through the Darién, as they could face hunger, injury, animal bites, robberies, violent assaults and sexual assault through the stretch, where no road exists making it inaccessible through any means except the trek, according to a report by Reuters.
Despite this, nearly 4,50,000 migrants have paid as little as $350 to smugglers to make the trek through the Darién in 2023, authorities from Panama told the WSJ in a report from October. This is a jump from around 2,48,000 individuals who made the trek in 2022, added the report.
For those from Africa, Asia, Haiti and Cuba, chartered flights through Managua, Nicaragua, became a popular option this year.
According to the WSJ November report, migrants are charged between $150 and $200 for a visa to enter Nicaragua.
Indians with valid US, UK and Schengen visas, can get a visa on arrival to Nicaragua according to BTW Visa Services — a core visa service processing provider in India.
From Managua, smugglers ferry immigrants to Honduras via the informal border crossings at Trojes and Las Manos, according to a report by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a Washington D.C.-based human rights advocacy organisation.
In Trojes and Danlí, migrants pay a $50 fee for a bus to the Guatemalan border — a 12-16 hour ride — crossing into Guatemala in Agua Caliente, Ocotepeque.
From there migrants continue north towards South Mexico, before making their way to the US-Mexico border, according to the WOLA report.
More than 4,00,000 Cubans have made their way to the US border via Nicaragua since 2021, highlighted the WSJ November report, adding that since June, an estimated 1,00,000 migrants from Haiti and Cuba arrived at Managua.
Moreover, nearly 150 chartered flights landed at Managua from Haiti, said the WSJ report.
Some 6,500 migrants from Uzbekistan have also arrived in Honduras from Nicaragua on chartered flights from Bulgaria, the November WSJ report noted.
‘Donkey flights’ and Indian asylum seekers
For Indians, the route to the US comes in many different forms.
One asylum seeker explained the route he took from Punjab to Fresno, California, to the WSJ in an October report.
The asylum seeker flew from New Delhi to Hungary, and from there to France, before arriving in Mexico City — the capital of Mexico — via a flight. From Mexico City, he took a bus to the border, before crossing into California, the WSJ reported.
his phenomenon of flying to third countries, such as Hungary, France or Nicaragua — countries where it is easy for Indians to obtain travel documents or do not require them — is coming to be called “donkey flights”, as reported by the WSJ.
In September, ONET, a Polish online news platform, broke a story on how Polish authorities collected large amounts of cash in exchange for fast-track visas, which aided migrants attempting to cross into the US via Poland.
In one case, ONET highlighted that a group of Indians paid up to $40,000 for fast-tracked Polish visas and “pretended” to work in a Bollywood production to fly to Poland and later to reach the US.
The case of a chartered flight from Fujairah, UAE to Nicaragua via France could be just another route or a “donkey” flight for Indians seeking asylum in the US.