(Image source from: Reuters)

On a recent visit to the federal prison in Victorville, the United States Representative Mark Takano was caught by astonishment since among hundreds of immigrants detained there, he learned, possibly 40 percent had traveled from India seeking asylum.

A high concentration of Central American detainees, many of the fathers who had been separated from their children.

The group appointed a representative since not all of the men spoke English who told Takano that they were supporters of two different political parties and had been persecuted by India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party.

"They said they were often bullied into doing things that were immoral," Takano said. "They would have to carry drugs, perpetrate violence against others."

According to immigration officials and attorneys, there has been an increase in recent years of Indian nationals crossing into the U.S. through Mexico - although they represent a small percentage of those detained overall. The citizens from India are among thousands of migrants from Haiti, Africa, and Asia now trekking across Latin America, taking advantage of travel routes forged by Latino immigrants.

At Victorville facility, nearly 380 of the 680 migrants by early August were Indian nationals, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, sent there as civil rather than criminal detainees pending the outcome of their immigration cases.

In addition, about 40 percent of the detainees at Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Imperial Valley facility are from India, a spokeswoman said. Nearly 20 percent of detainees at ICE's Adelanto processing center are Indian.

According to data from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, thus far during the 2018 fiscal year, 4,197 of those arrested by Border Patrol agents have been Indian nationals. Umpteen have seen their claims over asylum denied.

From fiscal years 2012 to 2017, about 42 percent of asylum cases from India were rejected, clearinghouse records show.

An immigrant from the northern state of Punjab Sukhwinder, who did not want his spent two months inside the Imperial Valley center, where he said he was not permitted to wear the turban and bracelet many Sikhs wear as part of their faith. Hindus housed in the same facility were forced to eat meat for more than two weeks, despite their religious beliefs, he said.

"I didn't feel at ease," Sukhwinder said through an interpreter. "I wished I was in my home country."

The 20-year-old said he fled India after being attacked late last year by a group of men who stepped out of their car and asked him why he had not joined the BJP, the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist government. When he told them he did not support their cause, they pummeled him with hockey sticks and threatened to kill him the next time they crossed paths, he said.

Fearing for his life, Sukhwinder's parents sold gold and part of their wheat farm to get him a visa and a ticket to Mexico - in hopes that he could seek asylum in the United States.

By Sowmya Sangam