The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 consolidates India's immigration law framework but raises federalism and due-process concerns. Discuss.

The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 (Act No. 13 of 2025) replaced four legacy statutes — the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, Foreigners Act, 1946 and Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act, 2000 — creating a single code for entry, stay and removal of foreigners [1]. Consolidation is overdue, but its operational design invites federal and rights-based scrutiny.

Gains from consolidation

• Single framework: one law now governs visas, registration and exit, with a statutory Bureau of Immigration, ending overlapping colonial-era provisions [1].
• Clear source of power: detection and deportation flow from Sections 7(2), 13 and 29, replacing scattered executive practice [2].
• Security rationale: piloted in the Lok Sabha (introduced 11 March 2025) as a response to unregulated entry across a long, populated eastern border [3].

Federalism concerns

• Deportation policy is framed centrally through MHA SOPs (successors to the 2009, 2011 and 2013 instructions), while State police detain and the BSF, a central force, executes removal — diffusing accountability between Centre and State [4].
• Summary removal bypasses the State-level Foreigners Tribunal route used in Assam, which yields a written, appealable order.

Due-process concerns

• Section 16 places the burden of proving one is not a foreigner on the person, overriding ordinary evidence law [2] — workable only if she remains in India to discharge it.
• In the Sahin Fakir case (notice issued September 2026 by a Bench led by CJI Surya Kant), a woman was allegedly held over 100 hours without magisterial production, contrary to Article 22(2), and pushed across the border without nationality verification [4].
• Electoral-roll deletion during the SIR is not a citizenship determination, yet is being read as one [4].

Consolidation strengthens capacity; it must not thin safeguards. Requiring a signed nationality finding and exhausting the Act's own appellate stage before removal would reconcile border security with Article 21's guarantee of fair procedure — making the 2025 Act both effective and constitutionally durable.