The Meena Batra Case

On March 17th, ICE officers detained 53-year-old Meena Batra just after she'd passed through a Texas airport security gate and has now been confined to a Texas detention center for over a month

According to the Texas Observer magazine, Meena Batra is the only licensed legal interpreter in Texas, who translates Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi into English during U.S. immigration court proceedings involving South Asian defendants who do not speak or understand English.

On Tuesday, April 17th, she arrived at Harlingen International Airport in Texas to board a flight to Wisconsin for an immigrant court proceeding. She had passed through the security gate when a plainclothes ICE officer walked over and asked her if she knew was illegal or illegally residing in the U.S.

She told him she could show him work authorization documentation; she had routinely applied for and received which currently allows her to work for four more years in the U.S. He reportedly told her, “That doesn’t mean you can be here forever.” Batra said she did not resist being detained because she didn’t want ICE filing charges against her for evading or resisting arrest.

The ICE agents handcuffed her and took her the ICE field office in Harlingen. She was transferred to different holding cells over a period of 24 hours without food or water and finally has been confined to the El Valle Detention Center in a nearby county. She has remained there for over a month and has not been allowed to obtain medical care for surgeries she had undergone last December.

She arrived in America when she was a teenager in 1991. Earlier, back in India, her parents had been killed in violent riots against Sikhs in 1984. It has been estimated that between 3,000 and 17,000 Sikhs were murdered in that violence. Since she seemed to have a valid case, Batra applied for asylum, but it was not granted. Statistically asylum reportedly granted by U.S. immigration courts in only 10% of the cases.

Department of Homeland Security officials maintain she was given a final deportation order in 2000. Her attorney, Deepak Ahluwalia, counters she was granted “withholding of removal” legal status in 2008. Such withholding bars U.S. immigration court from deporting her back to India but the court could still possibly deport her to a third country.

Ahluwalia maintains Batra was denied due process in how she was illegally detained and arrested without any legal notice or motion from ICE or U.S. immigration court. She has lived in the U.S. for over 35 years and has worked and paid taxes for over 20 years. Her four children are all U.S. citizens. Her son enlisted in the U.S. Army.

Ahluwalia says he will continue the court fight against Batra being deported back to India or to a third country until he is able to secure her release.

CBS News interviewed Meena Batra at the detention center and her children at home, missing their mom in this short video clip: https://youtu.be/7vqfKs1h2a8?si=IlDhFfFRjj9EMMX4