Harjit Caur’s icy arrest moves the Sikhist community

The visiting room of the Mesa Verde ice processing center in Bakersfield, California, is small, strong and crowded. When the Harjit Cowor family arrived to see her, they barely managed to hear her – and the first words that caught them broke them.

“She said,” I prefer to die than to be in this facility. May God just take me now, “recalled her distracted daughter -in -law, Manjit Kaur.

The 73 -year -old Harjit Kaur, who has unsuccessfully applied for asylum in the United States and has lived in California for more than three decades, has been arrested by immigration and US customs law enforcement officers on September 8, provoking shock and sympathy for the Sikh community in the state and after.

Harjit Caur has filed several asylum complaints over the years that have been rejected, with the last refusal in 2012, her lawyer said.

Since then, she has been asked to report to immigration authorities every six months. She was arrested in San Francisco when she went for accommodation.

It comes against the backdrop of a broader repression on the part of Donald Trump’s administration on immigration, and especially the alleged illegal immigrants in the United States.

The question is sensitive – the country is struggling with how to deal with the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who arrive at their borders every year. More than 3.7 million asylum cases are pending in immigration courts. The increased budget for implementation of immigration means that ice is already the highest funded Federal Law Enforcement Agency.

Trump said he wanted to deport “the worst of the worst”, but critics say that immigrants without criminal files that follow a proper process were also directed.

“More than 70% of people arrested by ICE do not have a penalty,” said California Senator Jesse Arregin in a statement requiring Harjit Caur’s release. “Now, they are literally going after calm grandmothers. This shameful action harms our communities.”

US Congressman John Garamendi, which is the California neighborhood where Harjit Caur lives, has applied to ICE for her release.

“The decision of this administration to detain a 73 -year -old woman – a respected member of the Community without a criminal record, which is true to ice every six months more than 13 years – is another example of the wrong priorities in the implementation of Trump immigration,” said a spokesman.

In an email statement, ICE told the BBC that Harjit Caur had “exhausted decades of a proper process” and that an immigration judge ordered its removal in 2005.

“Hardjit Kaur has filed numerous complaints until the ninth Court of Appeal and has lost every time. Now that she has exhausted all laws of defense, ICE applies the US law and the judge’s orders; it will not lose more tax dollars in the US,” he added.

Harjit Kaur came to the United States in 1991 with his two minor sons after the death of her husband, her lawyer Deepak Ahluwalia told the BBC. Her daughter -in -law, Manjit Kaur, said that the young widow wanted to protect her sons and escape from political turbulence in the country in Punjab in India at that time.

Over the next three decades, she has been working a modest work to raise her sons, one of whom is now a US citizen. Her five grandchildren are also US citizens.

Harjit Kaur, who lives in Hercules in the area of ​​San Francisco Bay, has worked as a seamstress at a Sari store for the past two decades and pays his taxes. US asylum applicants have the right to live, work and pay taxes legally after their request has been officially filed.

Even after her final asylum complaint was rejected in 2012, her work permit was renewed every year.

After rejection, her deportation seemed inevitable, but she did not have the right travel documents to India.

Indian missions in US Emergency Certificates – One -way Travel Document – Indians with Invalid Status to allow them to return. This will require a Harjit Caur’s origin and identity check in Punjab through photos, cross -checking with relatives or acquaintances, or finding old records, which will take at least a few weeks.

More than a decade after the rejection, neither Harjit Kaur nor US immigration officials have been able to obtain a trip for it. Manjit Kaur said they visited the Indian Consulate in San Francisco in 2013, but failed. India Consul General in San Francisco, Srikar, told the BBC that there is no data on Harjit Kaur, who applies for travel documents in India.

ICE did not answer a question why it has not received a travel permit in the last 13 years.

Ahluwalia said it follows the Indian Consulate for the documents that “Ice has not been able to obtain in the last 13 years.” The consulate says they “facilitate all the necessary consular assistance.”

Meanwhile, Harjit Caur’s family says she has never questioned her deportation and should not have been detained.

“You provide us with the travel documents and she’s ready to go,” Manjit Kaur said. “She had even packed her suitcases in 2012.”

At the moment, their immediate care is to get her out of the detention center.

“You can put an ankle monitor on it. We can register with immigration whenever you want,” Mandzhit Caur said. “Just take it out of the facility and when you provide us with the travel documents, it will self -write in India.”

The lawyer told her that when she met Hargit Kaur on September 15, she was not provided with her regular medication. He claims that she was “dredged with security,” “giving up a chair or bed” and is “forced to sit on the floor” for hours in a holding cell, even though she has undergone a double knee replacement.

He also claims that it has been “explicitly denied water” and has not provided vegetarian food for the first six days.

ICE did not answer specific questions about these allegations, but earlier told the BBC Punjabi that “a long-standing policy is that once someone enters the ice arrest, they are provided with full healthcare.”

The detainees have access to “medical meetings and 24-hour emergency care” and no one abandoned basic care at any time during detention, “he added.

Kulvinder Singh Pannu, President of the Gurdwara Committee at the Sikhist Center in the San Francisco Bay, says Bibi Hargit (a respectful way to refer to an elderly woman from Punjabi) is well liked in the area.

“She has always helped the people in our community with anything financially,” he said.

“Several hundred people appeared alone to protest against her arrest,” he said, citing agitation on September 12 outside the Sikhist temple in California.

While uncertainty continues, Harjit Caur’s supporters plan to conduct more protests, including in other cities in the United States, with many saying they are touched by its difficult situation.

A single mother, Harjit Kaur, has formed deep roots and relationships in the United States over the last 30 years. Her parents and siblings in India are no longer alive, says Ahluwalia.

“She has no one, there is no home, no land to return to.”

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