Sikh who entered US illegally to be deported to India

NEWYORK: A 39-year-old Sikh, who entered the US illegally through Mexico a decade ago, will be deported to India as Trump administration continues its crackdown on illegal immigrants.His attorney said being a Sikh, he had fled religious persecution in Punjab where he feared for his life.

Baljit, who has no criminal history and is a father of two children who are US citizens, was required to go for periodic checkins with immigration officials and during one such visit early this month, he was told he will be deported to India after 90 days, a report in the LA Times said.

After a week of detention, Baljit has been released with an ankle monitor and will have to return to India at the end of three months. “With this new administration, the rules have changed everybody goes,” his wife, Kate Singh, told The Times.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a father and haven’t done anything to break the law, or if you’re a criminal. Everybody’s going. It’s just a huge cleanup,” she said.

Baljit has fought a lengthy legal battle to stay in the country. A judge had denied his asylum case. The report quoted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman Lori Haley as saying that Baljit’s immigration case has undergone “exhaustive review” over the last 11 years at multiple levels of the department of justice’s immigration court system.

“The courts have consistently held that Baljit does not have a legal basis to remain in the US,” Haley said in the report. Even though Singh has no criminal history, Haley said the head of the agency has made it clear that anyone in the country illegally “may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by the immigration courts, as Baljit was, removed from the United States.”