ARREST Ice Harjit Kaur causes the Sikh community

Ice Mesa Verde in Bakersfield, California, small, loud and crowded. When Hardzhita Kaur’s family arrived, they barely heard her – and the first words they caught destroyed them.

“She said, ‘I would like to die than to be in this facility. May God just take me, ”Mandit Kaur’s bewildered daughter-in-law.

Hardzhit Kaur, 73, who unsuccessfully applied for asylum in the United States and has been living in California for more than three decades, was arrested by officials on immigration and customs service (ICE) on September 8, causing shock and sympathy from the Sikh community across the state.

Over the years, Hardzhit Caur has filed several refuge appeals that were rejected, with the last refusals in 2012, her lawyer said.

Since then, she has been offered to report immigration bodies every six months. She was arrested in San Francisco when she went to registration.

This is against the background of the broader repression of the Donald Trump administration on immigration issues, and especially allegedly illegal immigrants in the US.

The problem is sensitive – the country is fighting how to deal with hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who come to their borders every year. The migration courts contain more than 3.7 million shelter cases. Increasing the budget for law enforcement means that ICE is now the highest funding for the federal law enforcement.

Trump said he wanted to deport “worse”, but critics say immigrants without criminal records were also aimed.

“More than 70% of people arrested by ICE have no criminal conviction,” said California Senator Jesse Orregin in a statement demanding the release of Hardzhita Caurus. “Now they are literally following peaceful grandmothers. This shameful act is harmful to our communities.”

US Congressman John Hoordi, who represents the California district where Hardzhit Kaura lives, submitted ICE for release.

“The decision of this administration to detain a 73 -year -old woman is a respected member of the community who has no criminal record, which has accurately reports ICE for more than six months – another example of the inappropriate priorities of forced immigration execution,” the press secretary said.

In an e -mail statement, Ice told the BBC that Harjit Kaur “exhausted the decades of the proper process” and that the Immigration Judge ordered it to be removed in 2005.

“Harjit Kaur has filed several appeals up to the Appeal Court in the ninth district and lost every time. Now that it has exhausted all legal defense, Ice complies with the US legislation and orders the judge; it will not spend more tax in the US,” he added.

Hardzhit Caur came to the United States in 1991 with his two underage sons after her husband’s death, said the Akhlivia attorney. Her daughter -in -law Mandit Kaur said the young widow wanted to protect her sons and avoid political turbulence in the Punjab State in India.

Over the next three decades, she worked with a modest job to raise her sons, one of whom is now a US citizen. Her five grandchildren are also US citizens.

Hardzhit Kaur, who has lived in the city of Hercules in the Gulf of San -Francisco, worked as a seamstress in the Sarah shop for the last two decades and pay his taxes. Asylum applicants throughout the US is allowed to live, work and pay taxes legally if their lawsuit is officially filed in the process.

Even after the final appearance of asylum was rejected in 2012, its work permit was updated every year.

After refusal, her deportation seemed inevitable, but she had no right documents for travel to India.

Indian missions in the US Emergency Certificate issue – a one -sided travel document – Indians with invalid status so that they can return. This will require checks on the origin and identity of Harjit Kaur in Punjab through photos, intersection with relatives or acquaintances or search for old records that will take at least a few weeks.

More than a decade since the refusal, neither Hardzhit Caur, nor US immigration officials have been able to get permission to travel for her. Mandjit Caur said she had visited the Indian Consulate in San Francisco in 2013, but failed. India’s Consul General in San Francisco K Sirri Reddi told the BBC that Harjit Kaur did not record that they apply for travelers to India.

Ice did not answer the question of why he has not received permission for the trip over the last 13 years.

Mr. Aklivalia said he was going with the Indian Consulate for Documents that “I have not been able to buy ice over the last 13 years”. The consulate states that they “facilitate all the necessary consular assistance.”

Meanwhile, the Hardzhita Kaura family says he never questioned his deportation and should not have been arrested.

“Give us travel documents and she is ready to go,” said Mandit Caur. “She even packed suitcases back in 2012.”

Now their immediate problem is to pull it out of the detention center.

“You can put an ankle monitor on her. We can register with immigration if you want,” said Mandjit Caur. “Just pull it out of the object, and when you provide us with travel documents, it tells about India on your own.”

Her lawyer said that when he met with Hardzhit Kaur on September 15, she was not provided regular medicines. He claimed that she was “dragged by the guards”, “denied a chair or bed” and was “forced to sit on the floor” for hours in the holding chamber, despite the fact that they had a double knee replacement.

He also claimed that she “clearly abandoned the water” and did not provide vegetarian food for the first six days.

Ice did not answer specific questions on these accusations, but previously said the BBC Punjabi that “this is a long -standing policy that, as soon as someone is in the care of ice, they are provided with full medicine.”

The detainees have access to “medical meetings and 24 hours of emergency”, and no one “refuses to assist at any time during the detention,” he added.

Kulvinder Singh Virgin, President of the Committee Gordwar in the Sikh Center in the San Francisco Gulf, says Bibbi Hardzhit (a respectful way of referring to the elderly Punjabi) in the area.

“She always helped people in our community with what she had financially,” he said.

“A couple of hundred people appeared on their own to protest against her arrest,” he said, citing the arousal on September 12 outside the Sikh temple in California.

As the uncertainty continues, Hardzhita Kaura’s supporters plan to hold more protests, including in other US cities, and many say that their difficult situation touches.

Over the past 30 years, the mother of Hardzhit Caur has formed deep roots and relations in the US. Her parents and siblings in India are no longer alive, says Mr.

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

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