September 24, 2025 (Nationwide) — The Sikh Coalition is saddened and angered to share that Bibi Harjit Kaur has experienced additional mistreatment in the course of her deportation. As of the time of writing, she has landed in India and is on her way back to Punjab.
Bibi Harjit Kaur is a 73-year-old grandmother who had been attending her ICE check-ins in Hercules, California, for the past 13 years. On September 8, she was abruptly detained at one of those check-ins and held by ICE since. Late on Friday, September 19, Bibi ji was flown across the country from an ICE detention center in Bakersfield, California, to a holding facility in Lumpkin, Georgia; shortly thereafter, she was put on a charter flight back to India. Per Deepak Ahluwalia, her attorney, he and Bibi ji’s family were not notified of this cross-country transfer and she was not allowed to say goodbye—despite the fact that they had literally booked her a commercial flight from San Francisco to India and planned for a family member to accompany her.
We detailed some of the inhumane and unacceptable treatment that Bibi ji experienced at the hands of ICE in our previous update about her case. Since we have learned more from her through her attorney, however, that list now includes:
- She was held in cells without a bed or chair for hours and made to sleep on the floor.
- She was shackled when being transported via van between ICE facilities.
- She was refused vegetarian meals in accordance with her religious beliefs; at various points, she was offered only an apple or a plate of ice as food to take her medicine with—things she could not eat due to dental problems.
- She was prohibited from showering throughout her detention.
- She was denied basic medical care, and was only provided with her medicine several days into her detention.
- She was repeatedly refused water and access to basic hygiene supplies like toilet paper.
It is despicable that any human should be treated this way, and downright sickening that a 73-year-old woman was forced to endure it. We have a collective responsibility to stand against this and all further injustices being visited upon vulnerable people in ICE’s custody—because again, as we detailed in our previous message, the cruelty of what was done to Bibi ji is not unique.
There is a deep moral rot growing rapidly throughout our nation’s immigration enforcement apparatus. To be sure, it is the seizure, mistreatment, and deportation of law-abiding (and often vulnerable) individuals like Bibi ji. But it is also the Trump Administration’s immediate move to permit immigration raids at schools, hospitals, and houses of worship. It is ICE’s use of thuggish tactics like masked and unidentified agents who throw people into unmarked vans. It is the Supreme Court permitting the Trump Administration to send deportees to dangerous third countries like South Sudan and Libya, or the Trump Administration sending asylum seekers to a notorious supermax prison in El Salvador. It is ICE having a larger budget than most of the world’s militaries and lowering its application standards to hire more agents. It is so-called “Border Czar” Tom Homan being investigated for accepting bribes from undercover FBI-agents—before the Justice Department, under Attorney General Pam Bondi, shut that investigation down. And it is the Department of Homeland Security gutting its own watchdog agencies while arresting and charging elected officials for attempting to conduct oversight at ICE facilities.
Our nation can and must have reasonable civic debate about immigration policy. That debate, however, is not happening; in its place is an increasingly draconian and undemocratic surge that will come for the vulnerable and the innocent in our community just as sure as it has already come for Bibi Harjit Kaur and too many others. We are committed to taking further action in response to this rising threat, and we look forward to sharing more in the days and weeks ahead.
As always, the Sikh Coalition urges you to practice your faith fearlessly.