A 73-year-old Sikh woman, Harjit Kaur, who had lived in the United States for over three decades, was deported to India by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to her lawyer, Deepak Ahluwalia, she was not even given a chance to say goodbye to her family or collect her belongings before being removed. Kaur was handcuffed and taken to an ICE facility in Los Angeles, from where she was placed on a chartered flight to Georgia and subsequently deported to New Delhi.
Her lawyer revealed that the family had requested she be sent back on a commercial flight and be allowed to meet her loved ones for a few hours, but ICE denied both requests. Instead, she spent nearly 60 to 70 hours in a temporary Georgia detention facility without basic amenities, forced to sleep on a concrete bench or the floor. The case came to light when her lawyer posted a video online detailing the harsh circumstances of her deportation.
Harjit Kaur had migrated to the US in 1992 as a single mother with two sons and had been living in Northern California’s East Bay for over 30 years. She worked for more than two decades at a local Indian clothing store and had built a family with children and grandchildren in the US. However, she was undocumented, and her asylum case had been denied in 2012 after years of unsuccessful appeals. Despite this, she had consistently reported to ICE every six months as required.
Earlier this month, her detention during a routine check-in sparked protests across California, with hundreds of community members demanding her release. Demonstrators described her as “everyone’s grandmother” and carried signs reading “Bring Grandma Home.” The protests reflected widespread outrage over her treatment and deportation.
ICE, however, defended its actions, stating that Harjit Kaur had exhausted decades of due process and that an immigration judge had ordered her removal back in 2005. Despite multiple appeals, including to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, she had lost each time. The agency said it was now enforcing the law and the court’s order, arguing that continuing to delay her removal would only waste US taxpayer dollars.
