‘Arrest first, plan later’: Lawyer for arrested Texas Indian woman Minu Batra says Trump 2.0 exploits legal loopholes

Meenu Batra’s attorney, Deepak Ahluwalia, said the ICE office has never summoned Meenu Batra in the past 26 years.

With the Department of Homeland Security calling Meenu Batra an illegal alien from India, her lawyer Deepak Ahluwalia said due process was not followed in the arrest of Batra, a legal translator who has been working in the United States since 1992. Ahluwalia told CNN that Meenu Batra had never been asked to appear at any ICE office in the past 26 years and that she was suddenly arrested at the airport while on a business trip without any prior notice. The Department of Homeland Security said Batra came to the United States illegally at an unknown date and location and issued her a final deportation order in 2000.Batra was granted withholding of deportation, which means she cannot be deported to India, Ahluwalia said. But Ahluwalia said Trump 2.0 found a loophole whereby if a person could not be deported to their home country, they could be deported to a third country. But the government has yet to reveal what further action they plan to take, as they arrest first and plan later. Ahluwalia explained that when a person is granted this status, they can live in the United States if a person cannot be deported to their country of origin unless DHS files suit in the same court that granted relief to reopen the case. This only occurs when there is a felony case against an individual.Another possibility is that the Department of Homeland Security calls for a reopening of the case, citing changes in circumstances in the country. But the Department of Homeland Security failed to follow these due procedures in Meenu Batra’s case. Ahluwalia said the government had resorted to this approach in several cases of trying to transfer people to third countries.Lawyers say the Department of Homeland Security cannot send Batra to India, but they have not yet decided where they plan to send her.Meenu Batra, 53, came to the United States in 1991 after her parents were killed in India. She spent most of her life in the United States, married and had four children, while continuing to work as a translator as she knew Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and English. She was arrested at Harlingen International Airport on March 17 and has been in ICE custody ever since.