New Delhi: In Trump administration’s continuing zero-tolerance crackdown on illegal immigration that has led to the separation of families and, most controversially, removal of children from their parents with as many as 52 men from India being held in US federal prisons.

The Indians, who were mostly Punjabi and Hindi speakers, are being held in a federal detention center in Oregon, Washington state, where they were transferred as part of a larger group of 123 people held allegedly for crossing into the US illegally along the border with Mexico weeks ago.

According to a local news daily The Oregonian, some of the Indians identified themselves as Sikhs and Christians who claimed they were fleeing persecution by Hindu majority in India. It could not be immediately confirmed if they had been separated from their families.

Response from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), one of the agencies that enforces immigration laws, was awaited to check if there were more Indians being held elsewhere. This group in Oregon was discovered during a tour of the facility by a delegation of US lawmakers.

The others in this group of 123 — all men, ICE has said — were from China, Guatemala, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan and Ukraine.

They told the lawmakers that they are locked up 22 to 23 hours a day, three to a cell, according to The Oregonian report. Those with families have said they have no information about their wives and children and their recent meeting with some lawyers were their first contacts with the outside world in days.