Chandigarh/IBNS: In a massive crackdown, Punjab has cancelled the licenses of 40 travel agents amid a huge row over the deportation of Indians who migrated illegally to the US, media reports said.

Licenses of some IELTS centers have also been cancelled and such action will be taken in future as well, NDTV quoting sources reported.

The Amritsar police have taken action based on a complaint by Sarabjit Singh against travel agents operating illegally from the city.

The police are continuously registering cases against travel agents who send Indians illegally and raids are being conducted to catch them, sources told NDTV.

Sarabjit Singh said he had given a letter to the Deputy Commissioner Sakshi Sahni.

As per government sources cited by NDTV, the biggest chunk of the Indians being deported by the US belong to Punjab.

As many as 345 people have been deported by the US in four batches of which, the maximum people-126 or 37.8 percent hail from Punjab, said reports.

The deportation, and the way it is being carried out, became a political flashpoint with the Opposition asking why the Centre did not intervene to bring them back on its terms.

Amid criticism, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said the Centre had been engaging with the US to ensure the deportees are not mistreated.

US President Donald Trump has defended the mass deportation of illegal immigrants, saying his administration is "draining the swamp by sending home fraudsters, cheaters, globalists and deep state bureaucrats."

He has made mass deportation of undocumented migrants a key policy.

As of 2022, unauthorised immigrants represented 3.3 percent of the total US population, and 23 percent of the foreign-born population, according to Pew Research Centre.