CHANDIGARH: A 73-year-old woman, Harjit Kaur from Punjab, was deported back to India this week by US immigration authorities. Kaur had lived in the US for three decades.
Kaur reportedly arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on September 23. Her lawyer, Deepak Ahluwalia, stated in an Instagram post that on Sunday night she was suddenly taken from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, then put on a chartered flight to Georgia, followed by Armenia, and from there to New Delhi by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without notifying either the attorney or giving any advance notice to anyone.
Ahluwalia claimed that Kaur, who had undergone double knee replacement surgery, was taken to Georgia in handcuffs on Saturday morning. Until her departure on Monday evening, she was held in a temporary detention facility for outgoing detainees, where she was denied basic amenities.
“She was not given a bed and had to share a holding room with others, where the only options were a concrete bench or the floor. She was forced to sleep on the floor with just a blanket and struggled to stand after lying down,” he said.
He added, “She was not even allowed to say goodbye to her family or collect her belongings. The family had arranged for her travel documents and requested that she be sent on a commercial flight, but their requests were ignored.”
Kaur immigrated to the US in 1992 as a single mother of two sons and had complied with immigration requirements. For the past 13 years, she had been reporting to ICE in San Francisco every six months without fail. In 2012, her asylum claim was denied, after which she remained under ICE supervision.
On September 8, Kaur, a longtime resident of Hercules, California, was taken into custody by ICE after attending what was supposed to be a routine immigration appointment in San Francisco. Her family says she was later transferred to the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Centre in Bakersfield.
A few days ago, hundreds of people protested her detention, calling her “everyone’s grandma.” The demonstration was organised by her family, the Sikh Center, and the advocacy group Indivisible West Contra Costa. Around 200 people, carrying placards reading “Bring Grandma Home” and “Hands Off Our Grandma,” gathered at the intersection of Appian Way and San Pablo Dam Road, near the El Sobrante Sikh Gurdwara, demanding her release.
In response, ICE told the BBC, “Kaur has filed multiple appeals all the way up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and lost each time. Now that she has exhausted all legal remedies, ICE is enforcing US law and the orders issued by the judge. She will not waste any more US tax dollars.”