73-year-old Harjit Kaur deported to India by ICE, not allowed to meet family last time
Bibi Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old woman who spent over three decades in the United States, was deported to India this week by US immigration authorities.
Bibi Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old woman who spent over three decades in the United States, was deported to India this week by US immigration authorities. Her lawyer Deepak Ahluwalia said that Kaur was not allowed to meet her family in the US for a last goodbye before she was deported back to India in handcuffs.
Context on Bibi Harjit Kaur’s case
Harjit Kaur had lived in the US since 1992 and applied for asylum multiple times. After her last appeal was rejected in 2012, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asked her to report for a check every six months. She was taken into custody on September 8 during one such scheduled check-in.
Her case had garnered widespread attention in the Sikh community, with thousands of people petitioning for her release.
Deported without meeting family
Her attorney, Deepak Ahluwalia, confirmed in an Instagram video that Kaur had exhausted all her appeal options – but the issue was with the way in which she was deported. He said that the 73-year-old and her family had cooperated with ICE for 13 years. In fact, it was ICE that was unable to procure a travel document that Kaur needed to go back to India.
Ahluwalia says that Kaur was suddenly taken from Bakersfield to Los Angeles Sunday night, and thereafter put on a chartered flight to Georgia. Her family was not informed of the move.
“Late Friday night, early Saturday morning around 2 am – without notifying the attorney, without notifying any advance notice to anybody – they took her from Esaverde from Bakersfield, drove her to LA while in handcuffs yet again, and put her on a flight to Georgia,” said Ahluwalia.
All of this happened while her family and lawyer somehow managed to procure the travel document by themselves and were “trying to negotiate with the ICE attorneys and the government for her to depart on a commercial flight.”
Instead of allowing her to travel on a commercial flight, ICE put her on a chartered plane with other deportees. Her last 48 hours in the US were marked by neglect and denial of basic necessities.
A terrible time in ICE custody
According to Ahluwalia, Kaur was taken to Georgia in handcuffs on Saturday morning.
“From the moment she arrived in Georgia on Saturday until her departure on Monday evening, she was held in a temporary detention facility for outgoing detainees,” he said.
For nearly 60–70 hours, the 73-year-old was not given a bed. Instead, she had to share a holding room with multiple others, where the only options were a concrete bench or the floor.
She was made to sleep on the floor with just a blanket. Having had double knee replacement surgery, she struggled even to stand after lying down.
Requests for food ignored
Her requests for food, especially so she could take her medication, were ignored. She was not starved completely, but what she was given was inadequate. At one point she was handed a single cheese sandwich. When she asked again for food or at least water to take with her medicine, she was given a plate of ice.
She explained that she had dentures and couldn’t chew it. The guard’s response was, “That’s your fault.”
During this time, she also repeatedly requested to speak to her attorney — each request was denied. She was not allowed to shower even once during her stay. Just before the Monday evening flight, detainees were handed wet wipes and told to clean up as best they could before boarding.
The flight back to India
Ahluwalia said that around 7 pm on Monday, she was placed on a private ICE-chartered flight from Georgia to Armenia, and then onward to Delhi. Normally detainees are shackled during transport. One officer attempted to cuff her, but another intervened, citing her age. That was the only small reprieve she was given.
Kaur arrived in Delhi on September 23.
