DonateSign UpHome
About Us
Our Work
Get Involved
NewsRoom
Resources
About Sikhs
Blog
Contact Us
Need legal assistance?
Request legal assistance from the Sikh Coalition.
Contact Us
September 17, 2025
On Bibi Harjit Kaur and the Trump Administration’s Immigration Enforcement Practices
Please see below for a reflection on the case of Bibi Harjit Kaur and our larger concerns with the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement practices. As always, access all of our immigration ‘know your rights’ materials—in English and Punjabi—at thesikh.co/immigration.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh,
Bibi Harjit Kaur is a 73-year-old grandmother who is currently detained at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Facility in Bakersfield, California. Bibi Harjit Kaur was detained in San Francisco last week during one of her regular ICE check-ins, to which she had been faithfully reporting to for the past 13 years.
If Bibi Harjit Kaur’s detention and potential deportation itself were not harsh enough, we have recently learned through her attorney, Deepak Ahluwalia, that she has endured unacceptable treatment since being detained by ICE. She was shackled and held in a cell without a bed or chair for hours. She was transported from San Francisco to Fresno to Bakersfield with almost no ability to contact her family. She has been denied basic medical care, and only recently was provided with her medicine. And she has been refused water, vegetarian meals, and access to basic hygiene supplies like toilet paper. Again, we stress that all this is being done to a 73-year-old woman.
This is beyond unacceptable, and we are committed to doing anything we can, alongside other Sikh activists and organizations, to help Bibi Harjit Kaur and her family. (Her family is planning another solidarity rally in El Sobrante, California, on Friday, September 19.) It is time to recognize, however, that this extraordinary cruelty is not an exception under the Trump Administration’s immigration regime—it is the norm. Since the start of this year, we have seen too many similarly horrific stories:
A four-year-old child with metastatic cancer, who is a U.S. citizen, was deported to Honduras in April without medication or the ability of his parents to consult with his treating physicians.
Imam Ayman Soliman, a former chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, was detained while attending a regular check in with ICE officers. His seven-year-old asylum status was terminated and the government falsely accused him of ties to terrorism; he now faces deportation.
George Retes, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran, was detained during an immigration raid at his workplace in July and held in custody for three days.
Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a Massachusetts high school student who arrived in the United States from Brazil when he was seven years old, was arrested by ICE agents on his way to volleyball practice. He was detained for nearly a week.
Daniel Fuentes Espinal, a Maryland pastor and father of three with no criminal record who has been in the U.S. for 24 years, was arrested by ICE and detained in a field office in Maryland. He was released on bond from a facility in Louisiana one month after his arrest, only after supporters wrote dozens of letters in his defense.
It is not a matter of partisanship to recognize that these stories are antithetical to the Sikh faith and basic human decency. Accordingly, we are calling for action:
We urge you to contact your members of Congress and ask them to endorse the VISIBLE Act, a bill that would require ICE agents to wear visible identification and prohibit them from wearing ski masks or other non-medical face coverings while conducting public enforcement activities. We similarly urge all Sikh organizations to join us in endorsing this bill and pursuing an organized effort to find a Republican co-sponsor so that it can become bipartisan legislation.
We compel all Sikh elected and appointed officials to forcefully condemn these cruel and dehumanizing policies. Again, this is not a partisan issue; it is a moral obligation rooted in our collective commitment to justice and human dignity.
And most importantly, if most difficult, of all: If you are outraged by the treatment of Bibi Harjit Kaur, we urge you to share her story within your sangat—and then emphasize how what is happening to her is happening to too many elders, children, and other fellow human beings from different communities.
As a reminder, the Sikh Coalition has denounced immigration policies of both political parties in the past: We opposed draconian asylum changes during the Biden Administration, just as we opposed family separation policies under the first Trump Administration. We believe that people can and should deliberate different border security measures, paths to citizenship for undocumented persons, and more. The way that ICE is rapidly expanding its power in our country now, however—with a budget larger than many countries’ militaries, masked and unidentified agents sowing chaos, and increasing hostility to any oversight—is far beyond any normal or healthy civic debate.
Finally, we urge everyone to confront a stark reality: There will be no exception for our community. Policies designed to harm immigrants as a whole will inevitably harm Sikhs, as demonstrated by the case of Bibi Harjit Kaur and our organization’s direct engagement on similar situations this year. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. powerfully articulated this interconnectedness, stating, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Our defense of immigrant rights is not a choice—it is a moral imperative in keeping with the idea of sarbat da bhala, as well as a spiritual one.
As Sikhs, we have faced, and persevered through, forced migration and persecution from the land of our Gurus to our arrival in the United States. Our lived experiences compel us to speak out on inhumane and discriminatory policies that impact Sikhs and all other communities, and that includes the Trump Administration’s increasingly appalling immigration policy choices. The Sikh Coalition chooses to leverage our history to fuel our resolve in the present—for to secure our own future, we must fight for the future of all. We respectfully urge you to join us.
In Chardi Kala,
The Sikh Coalition Team
