A 60-year-old Indian woman, who has been living in the United States since 1994, was detained earlier this month by the country’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a biometric scan appointment for her green card application, NDTV quoted her family as saying.

Babblejit “Bubbly” Kaur, a former co-owner of a restaurant named Natraj Cuisine of India and Nepal in Long Beach’s Belmont Shore in California, was taken into custody on December 1 at a US Citizenship and Immigration Services facility, The Indian Express reported.

She has no criminal record, according to the newspaper.

Her detention came as the Donald Trump administration tightened immigration regulations and intensified a crackdown on undocumented migrants since January.

Babblejit Kaur had an approved petition for a green card from her daughter and son-in-law, who are both US citizens, her other daugther, Joti Kaur, was quoted as saying by Long Beach Watchdog.

A green card, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card, allows a person to stay and work permanently in the US.

The appointment on December 1 was expected to be the final administrative step in her adjustment of status to permanent residency, Joti Kaur added.

She told local media that Babblejit Kaur was at the front desk of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on December 1 when several federal agents entered the building, NDTV reported.

Joti Kaur added that her mother was subsequently called into a room where the federal agents told her that she was being arrested. Babblejit Kaur was allowed to briefly call her lawyer after which she was detained, The Indian Express quoted Joti Kaur as telling local media.

“She was really scared,” the newspaper quoted her as saying. She added that her mother was placed in a van with other detainees, with her hands and feet shackled.

For several hours, the family was not told where Babblejit Kaur was taken, NDTV reported. They later learnt that she had been transferred overnight to Adelanto, a former federal prison in California’s High Desert that was now being used as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centre.

As of Monday, Babblejit Kaur was still in Adelanto.

“It’s been a nightmare,” NDTV quoted Joti Kaur as saying. “We are trying anything and everything to get her out. She does not belong there. It is so inhumane.”

No official reason has been provided by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities or the Department of Homeland Security for her detention, The Indian Express reported.

Babblejit Kaur’s family, originally from India, settled in California in the mid-1990s.

She, along with her husband, ran the restaurant in Belmont Shore for over two decades before it shut during the Covid-19 pandemic, The Indian Express reported.

The couple has three children. While Joti Kaur holds legal status in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, her older brother and sister are US citizens.

Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia, who represents Long Beach, said that he was in contact with the family and described the detention as “horrific”, The Indian Express reported.

Meanwhile, Babblejit Kaur’s family is preparing additional legal filings that could allow Kaur to be released on bond as her case proceeds, NDTV reported.

In a case similar to Babblejit Kaur’s, 73-year-old Bibi Harjit Kaur was also detained in September by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a routine immigration check-in in California.

After being moved from a detention centre in California to a holding facility almost 4,000 km away in Georgia, without any notification to her lawyer or family, the grandmother was deported to India two weeks later.

“It is despicable that any human should be treated this way,” the Sikh Coalition, an organisation working for and with Sikh Americans, had said in a press release after Bibi Harjit Kaur’s deportation. “And downright sickening that a 73-year-old woman was forced to endure it”.

Bibi Harjit Kaur is now back in Punjab.

The US government has in several cases used military aircraft to repatriate undocumented migrants.

On December 4, the Indian government said that the US had deported 18,822 Indians since 2009, including 3,258 persons since January 2025. More than 1,360 Indians were deported in 2024 and 617 in 2023, the Ministry of External Affairs told Parliament.

Of those deported in 2025 till November 28, about 2,000 persons were deported on commercial flights and others on charter flights operated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection.

The deportations are subject to an “unambiguous verification” of their Indian citizenship, the ministry said.