Report by Harpreet Bajwa for The New Indian Express

Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old longtime resident of Hercules, California, who was deported to India on Thursday, says she is still reeling from the "inhuman treatment" she received at the hands of US authorities.

Speaking to The New Indian Express from her sister’s house in Mohali, where she arrived late Thursday night, Kaur said she has nowhere to go in India. “Where will I stay? I have no place here. The house and lands were sold off by my husband’s relatives,” she said.

Narrating her ordeal, Kaur, who appeared exhausted and had swollen feet, explained that she was detained on September 8 during a routine immigration appointment with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in San Francisco.

“They arrested me and asked me to sign some papers. I refused, but they told me I was under arrest,” she said. “I told the officer that my granddaughter was waiting outside and asked to call her. He didn’t allow me to make the call but instead took out his own phone, asked for her name and number, and let me speak to her briefly. I told her I had been arrested and to go home. She started crying immediately. She then called her parents, and they were all devastated.”

“I was made to sit the whole night after being arrested,” she continued. “Then, around 8 am the next morning, they transferred me to a facility in Yuba County. Look at my feet—they’re swollen. I didn’t receive any medication and could barely walk.”

Later, Kaur was moved to the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield around 3 am, where she stayed for 10 to 12 days. She said the clothes she was given in detention were unclean and uncomfortable.

“Then they moved me to Georgia for two days. The nights I spent in San Francisco and Georgia—I can never forget them. They made me wear cream-colored jail clothes, and I had to wear them until I landed in India,” she said.

“In Georgia, I was kept on a cement platform with four Mexican women who were also being deported. A young Punjabi woman was placed with me. She said, ‘Aunty, let’s put a blanket on the floor and sleep.’ But when I woke up, I couldn’t get up because I had knee surgery in the past. She tried her best to help me, but I couldn’t stand. Eventually, she called the staff, and two officers came to help me up and sat me back on the platform,” Kaur said, breaking down in tears.

Kaur recalled being handcuffed from the time she was arrested in San Francisco until she reached the Bakersfield facility. “Then an officer told the staff to remove the handcuffs. I couldn’t even walk or sit properly in their vehicle—where could I have run?”

Sobbing, she added, “They made me wear the same jail clothes the entire time. When my granddaughter and other family members came to visit me at the detention center and saw me in those clothes, she said, ‘Grandmother, I can’t see you like this. Go back to India. I will video call you twice a day.’”

“I haven’t committed any crime,” Kaur said. “But I couldn’t bear to see my grandchild in such distress.”

She also said she requested a four-day parole but ICE officials denied it. Her family had offered to buy her a commercial airline ticket and asked ICE to let her travel that way, but the request was denied.

“I am vegetarian and couldn’t eat the food they gave me,” she added.

Kaur said her sister and brother-in-law came to receive her at the Delhi airport. “Thankfully, the authorities gave us a clear flight time, and I was able to inform my daughter-in-law in advance.”

Kaur had been living in the US since 1992 after immigrating as a single mother of two sons. She had worked continuously, till most recently at a saree center, and paid all her taxes. “Since January this year, I stopped working,” she said. “The saree center owner told me that customers who used to come were shocked to hear that I had been deported and wanted to speak with me.”

She had been reporting to ICE every six months without fail for the past 13 years. Her asylum application was denied in 2012, but she continued to remain under ICE supervision.

“When my case was denied, I didn’t have a passport. They tried twice to make one, but it didn’t happen. Since then, I’ve been going to the ICE office every six months and reporting to them.”

When asked if she plans to return to the US, Kaur said she hasn’t thought about it. “I’m in trauma,” she said, adding that her family is planning to come visit her in India.