The case is now proceeding in India. After spending five days stuck at Vatry airport (in the eastern Marne region of France) on suspicion of illegal immigration, the Indian passengers on the Legend Airlines flight have begun to be interrogated by local police in the various states from which they originate, mainly Gujarat and Punjab. The A340 belonging to the small Romanian airline, which carried some 300 Indians on board, was grounded on December 21 by the French authorities. The aircraft was initially scheduled to make only a technical stop to refuel on its way from the United Arab Emirates to Nicaragua. It was eventually sent back to Bombay, where it landed on Tuesday, December 26. Twenty-five passengers, including five minors, remained in France, where they applied for asylum.

According to initial information released by the Gujarat police, the passengers stranded in Paris were planning to travel to Mexico via Nicaragua, before crossing the border illegally into the United States. They reportedly paid smugglers sums ranging from €43,500 to €130,500. These illegal immigration routes are well known in India, where they are called "donkey routes," from the Punjabi term dunki, meaning "to go from one place to another." For aspiring expatriates, this method consists of obtaining a residence permit in a country close to the US or the United Kingdom, for which it is easier to obtain a visa, before reaching the coveted land.

The incident highlights the dramatic increase in illegal Indian immigration to the US over the past five years. In 2021, some 725,000 undocumented Indians lived in the US, according to an estimate by the Pew Research Center. This number has risen steadily since 2017. Indians are the third largest group of illegal migrants in the US, behind Mexicans and Salvadorans. The number of Indian migrants attempting to cross one of the US borders has increased more than tenfold since 2019. American Customs and Border Protection reportedly counted 96,917 illegal Indian migrants in 2022-2023, compared with 8,027 in 2018-2019. The majority of them attempt to cross from Mexico via the southern border.

Several tragedies have shaken India's public opinion in recent years. In April 2023, a family from Gujarat was found drowned in the St. Lawrence River. On a tourist visa to Canada, the parents and their two children had attempted to cross the river illegally into the US. In January 2022, another family from the same state froze to death a few yards from the border. And in 2019, a 6-year-old girl from Punjab was found dead in the Arizona desert.

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