BENGALURU/ERNAKULAM: On a sultry February morning, Devika S, 24, sat with over 60 classmates at a nursing school in southern India, learning how to identify a bogus agency promising a ticket to the good life in a western country in exchange of big money, from a genuine one where the paperwork would be long-drawn but the migration route both affordable and safe.

The training session on safe and legal migration in Ernakulam in the southern Indian state of Kerala was organised by the local government, which is among a handful of interventions in a country hitting headlines globally for the crackdown on illegal Indian migrants.

The training, though planned days in advance, could not have been more timely.

On the same morning as the training – February 5– a United States military aircraft touched down in the north Indian town of Amritsar, Punjab, with 104 illegal Indian immigrants brought back to the country in shackles and handcuffs. Two more aircrafts with a total of 229 illegal Indians immigrants landed on February 16 and 17, amid reports of “Trump style” immigration raids targeting Indians in the United Kingdom as well.