Meenu Batra, a 53-year-old Indian-origin woman, has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Texas, triggering a legal challenge over the lawfulness of her custody. Batra has lived in the US for more than 35 years and is the only licensed Punjabi, Hindi and Urdu court interpreter in Texas, helping hundreds of people in immigration court for years.
She was detained on March 17 at Harlingen International Airport while travelling to Milwaukee for an immigration court assignment, where ICE officers stopped her and put her in handcuffs. She tried to clarify that she had a valid status and a legal work permit, yet was arrested and later transferred to the El Valle detention facility in Raymondville.
Speaking to The Guardian from jail, Batra called her detention “bizarre”. She said she has been “treated like a criminal” and fears being deported to a country where she has never been.
The Humiliating Ordeal
“It feels bizarre,” she told The Guardian. “I haven’t been able to cry much because nothing is making sense.”
“I don’t know how else to put it. Here I am just staring at the wall, wondering what exactly I’m doing here, but also what anybody is doing here.”
Batra had moved to the US in 1991 as a child after her parents were killed in the anti-Sikh violence of 1984. She has spent almost all of her adult life in South Texas, raising her four children. Her son recently enlisted in the US Army.
Now, Batra has filed a habeas corpus petition challenging her detention. In her petition, she said she was initially detained without food or water for 24 hours, and even denied her medication. She also alleged that after her arrest, officers made her pose for photographs with her hands behind her back, giving the impression that she was still handcuffed.
They told her the images were “for social media”. “This made me feel humiliated and treated like a criminal,” she said.
Fear Of Deportation To ‘Third Country’
Deepak Ahluwalia, a California and Texas-based immigration lawyer representing Batra, told The Guardian that in 2000, the 53-year-old woman was granted a “withholding of removal” to India by an immigration court, which concluded she was likely to face persecution there.
He explained that because of the “withholding of removal” order, the government cannot send her to India unless it reopens her immigration case. But the Trump administration has not done that, leading Ahluwalia to suspect that the government might send her to a third country
“It’s been a month since Meenu was detained, and they still haven’t told her where they want to send her,” Ahluwalia said.
Since Trump came to power last year, the United States has cut deals with dozens of countries, including Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, South Sudan and Rwanda, to accept US deportees. Last month, an appeals court reversed an order requiring the administration to give “meaningful notice” to deportees before sending them to an unfamiliar country.