‘I felt like my life didn’t matter’: 73-year-old Harjit Kaur recalls deportation experience after 30 years in US

73-year-old Harjit Kaur, deported after 30 years in the US, recalls her traumatic detention, saying, “I felt like my life didn’t matter.”

A 73-year-old Sikh woman, who spent over three decades in the United States, has shared her harrowing deportation experience after being sent back to India last month. Speaking to Humans of Bombay, Harjit Kaur recounted the trauma of being detained by US immigration officials in California and her eventual return to Punjab - a place she says no longer feels like home.

Harjit Kaur recounted the trauma of being detained by US immigration officials.(Instagram/@officialhumansofbombay)

“At 73, they took me from the place I called home for more than 30 years – like I was a criminal. The memories of those nights in detention make my hands tremble,” she said. Kaur said the ordeal began on September 8, during what was supposed to be a routine immigration check-in.

“I was told I was under arrest. My granddaughter was waiting outside. They let me call her once. I said, ‘Beta, go home… they’ve arrested me.’ She cried, thinking she’d done something wrong,” she recalled.

The 73-year-old described spending the night in a cold detention room with “no chairs, just a metal bench”. “When I asked for a pillow or blanket, I was given a dirty foil sheet. When they moved me, they cuffed my hands and legs. I could barely climb into the van. I wasn’t given my medicines,” she recalled.

Kaur said that for days, she struggled to find food that met her dietary needs. “The first week, they served only meat. I kept saying I was vegetarian, but they didn’t care. I survived on chips and biscuits until Sep 14th, when I got my first veg meal. I felt like my life didn’t matter.”

Life in the US

Kaur revealed that she had arrived in the US in 1992 with her sons, who became citizens through marriage, and later applied for asylum. Her final appeal was denied in 2012, but she continued reporting to immigration authorities as required. “For 13 years, I reported to immigration and followed every rule,” she said.

The 73-year-old further sharedd that her life in the US was “good”. “I worked 6 days a week, & helped care for my grandchildren. I’d drop my grandsons to school & pick them up; made sure they studied. They were closer to me than their parents. When they heard I’d been taken, they were devastated. They still ask, ‘Kya karoge aap, Dadi?’” she shared.

Denied opportunity to say goodbye

Her family, she said, acted swiftly to secure her release once she was detained. “My lawyer reached out to the Indian Consulate and discovered that, all these years, ICE never formally submitted a request for my travel documents,” Kaur said. Despite efforts to have her released into family custody to “say my goodbyes and leave with dignity,” she was instead transferred to a Georgia facility.

“Those last days were the worst. I wasn’t allowed to shower, wore the same clothes for 5 days, and slept on the floor,” she said.

Kaur landed in Delhi on September 24 with 132 deportees and now lives in Punjab with her brother. “But I still see that cold room, the chains, the metal bench in my mind,” she said. “My whole life – my family, my home – is on the other side of the world. I don’t know how to survive here,” she added.