Overview

• New rules mandate biometric collection for all foreigners and task the Bureau of Immigration with maintaining a central immigration database and coordinating investigations, detentions and deportations.
• States and Union Territories have been ordered to set up dedicated holding or detention centres for illegal foreigners pending deportation, with border forces directed to capture biometrics and turn back illegal entrants.
• Airlines and sea carriers must file passenger and crew details to immigration within set timelines, including within 15 minutes of departure, while rail and road carriers and certain exceptional scenarios receive liability carve‑outs.
• Grounds for refusal of entry or stay now explicitly include convictions for terrorism, espionage, rape, murder, human trafficking, narcotics offences, cybercrime, and membership of banned organisations.
• The Exemption Order preserves specified carve‑outs for citizens of Nepal and Bhutan, registered Tibetans, defined minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered by December 31, 2024, and registered Sri Lankan Tamils up to January 9, 2015.