'Inhuman and humiliating': She lived to tell her harrowing tale

Had to wear prison clothes until my return to India, says 73-yr-old after being deported from US

- HARPREET BAJWA @Chandigarh

NOT even in her wildest dreams did 73-year-old US resident Harjit Kaur think that a routine immigration appointment in San Francisco would end in jail. For Kaur, who spent over three decades in the US paying all taxes, September 8 was like any other day, when she went to the immigration centre with all valid documents. Everything was fine till the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials detained her suddenly for reasons best known to them.

"They arrested and forced me to sign some papers that I had refused, later they snatched my phone. Upon a lot of pleadings, they allowed me to speak to my granddaughter, who was waiting outside," she said.

Little did Kaur realise that the most "inhuman and humiliating" experiences of her life had just begun to unfold, marking the start of her worst nightmare in life.