“Dadi, don’t lose heart.”

This is what 73-year-old Harjit Kaur from Punjab listens to on the phone having been suddenly deported to India after spending more than three decades in the United States. On Saturday, she was at her sister’s house in Mohali.

“Today I am at my sister’s, tomorrow I will go to my brother’s. I don’t know how I will feel there,” Kaur said. “What hurts me most is when my grandchildren ask me on video calls: ‘Dadi, do you have a bed?’”

Kaur had gone to the US with her two sons in 1992. The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) accused her of “illegal stay” and deported her. The family says she has no criminal record and had been living there for over 30 years. “In 33 years, people get regularised. I don’t know what problem they had. In 2012, I got my first re

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