India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that 73-year-old Indian American Harjit Kaur was mistreated while in U.S. detention before she was deported. He said the government raised the matter “strongly” with the American embassy after she returned to India.
Addressing lawmakers during question hour in the upper house, Jaishankar said Indian immigration officials conduct routine interviews with all deportees when they land. In Harjit Kaur’s case, he noted that the officer who spoke with her reported she had not been handcuffed, pushing back against earlier claims circulating about her treatment.
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He added that, despite the clarification on handcuffing, the government’s assessment confirmed that Kaur did face mistreatment while she was held in U.S. custody before being placed on the flight back to India.
“Whenever any flight with deportees comes, the deportees are invariably interviewed by the officials of the Government of India. In this particular case, our immigration officer said that she was not cuffed,” Jaishankar said. “While Harjit Kaur (deportee) was not handcuffed, she was maltreated in detention before she was put on the flight. We raised the matter of her maltreatment strongly with the American Embassy and asked the American authorities to look into it.”
Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old Sikh woman who had lived in the United States for nearly thirty years, was sent back to India by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in September.
Kaur had relocated to California in 1991 with her two young sons, building a life and working there while making multiple unsuccessful attempts to secure asylum in the United States. She was transferred to a detention facility in Georgia on September 19 and deported to India three days later, on September 22.
During her detention, Kaur spent 60 to 70 hours without a bed, forced to sleep on the floor despite having had double knee replacements. She was given only ice to swallow her medication and was denied food she could eat, with guards blaming her for not being able to eat the provided sandwich.
Kaur had filed several appeals, including cases brought before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but all were ultimately unsuccessful.