73-year-old Harjit Kaur from Punjab was sent back to India this week after living in the United States for more than 30 years.Kaur arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi on September 23.
Her lawyer, Deepak Ahluwalia, said she was suddenly taken from her home in Bakersfield to Los Angeles on Sunday night. From there, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) put her on a chartered flight to Georgia, and then she flew to New Delhi.
Ahluwalia said that she was not treated well during her journey. She was kept in handcuffs for a long time, locked in cold, empty cells, and was not given basic needs. “She wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to her family or take her things,” her lawyer said, calling the deportation “inhumane.”
Who is Harjit Kaur?
Kaur moved to the United States in the early 1990s as a widowed mother with two young sons, escaping political violence in Punjab, India. In California, she worked for more than 20 years as a seamstress at an Indian clothing shop in Berkeley. People in her community knew her as a kind, independent woman and often called her “everyone’s grandma.”
Even though she has no criminal record and always followed the rules, checking in with immigration officials every six months for over 10 years, ICE detained her in September 2025 during one of her regular check-ins.
Details regarding deportation
Ahluwalia added, “We had just two demands: first, to send her back on a commercial flight, and second, to let her meet her family for a few hours. But they refused to listen.” Kaur’s detention started on September 8, when she went to the San Francisco ICE office for what she thought was a normal check-in.
Instead, she was arrested. She was moved between detention centers in Fresno and Bakersfield and was held for two weeks. During this time, her family said she didn’t always get the medicine she needed.
Her sudden deportation, even though she has lived in the US a long time and has a clean record, caused protests in California. Hundreds of people gathered in El Sobrante with signs saying “Hands off our grandma” and “Harjit Kaur belongs here.” Congressman John Garamendi, California Senator Jesse Arreguin, and other local leaders asked ICE to change their mind, saying her detention was a “wrong priority.”
ICE defends action
ICE clarified their action and spoke to 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 by the judge; she will not waste any more US tax dollars.”