The visiting room of the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Centre in Bakersfield, California, is small, loud, and crowded. When Harjit Kaur's family arrived to see her, they could barely hear her - and the first words they caught shattered them.
She said, 'I would rather die than be in this facility. May God just take me now,' recalled her distraught daughter-in-law, Manjit Kaur.
Harjit Kaur, 73, who unsuccessfully applied for asylum in the US, and has lived in California for more than three decades, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials on 8 September, sparking shock and sympathy from the Sikh community across the state and beyond.
Harjit Kaur had filed several asylum appeals over the years which were rejected, with the last denial in 2012, her lawyer said.
Since then, she had been asked to report to immigration authorities every six months. She was arrested in San Francisco when she had gone for a check-in.
It comes amid a wider crackdown by the Donald Trump administration on immigration, and especially alleged illegal immigrants in the US.
The issue is a sensitive one - the country is grappling with how to deal with the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who arrive at its borders every year. More than 3.7 million asylum cases are pending in immigration courts. An increased budget for immigration enforcement means ICE is now the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency.
Trump has said he wants to deport the worst of the worst, but critics say immigrants without criminal records who follow due process have also been targeted.
Over 70% of people arrested by ICE have no criminal conviction, said California State Senator Jesse Arreguin in a statement demanding Harjit Kaur's release. Now, they are literally going after peaceful grandmothers. This shameful act is harming our communities.
US Congressman John Garamendi, who represents the Californian district where Harjit Kaur lives, has submitted a request to ICE for her release.
This administration's decision to detain a 73-year-old woman - a respected member of the community with no criminal record who has faithfully reported to ICE every six months for more than 13 years - is one more example of the misplaced priorities of Trump's immigration enforcement, a spokesperson said.
Harjit Kaur came to the US in 1991 with her two minor sons after the death of her husband. Her daughter-in-law Manjit Kaur said that the young widow wanted to shield her sons from and escape the political turbulence in India's Punjab state at the time.
Over the next three decades, she worked modest jobs to raise her sons, one of whom is now a US citizen. Her five grandchildren are also US citizens.
Harjit Kaur, who lives in Hercules city in the San Francisco Bay Area, was working as a seamstress at a sari store for the past two decades and pays her taxes. Asylum applicants across the US are allowed to live, work, and pay taxes legally once their claim is officially filed and in process.
Her family, meanwhile, says she never questioned her deportation and should not have been detained. Provide us the travel documents and she is ready to go, Manjit Kaur said. She had even packed her suitcases back in 2012.
