The Human Cost of US Immigration Crackdown: A Father, A Brain Tumor, A Deportation Threat

For over two months, the thriving life of Paramjit Singh, a 48-year-old US green card holder, gas station owner, and father of two US citizens, has been on hold—exchanged for the confines of an ICE detention center in Indiana.

Mr. Singh, who has maintained his green card status since 1994, was detained at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on July 30th after a visit to India. While ICE cites decades-old convictions for his detention, his family and lawyer are battling not just the legal claims but what they describe as a profound medical crisis.

Mr. Singh is currently battling a brain tumor and a heart condition, which require immediate and specialized care. According to his niece, Kiran Virk, his second brain tumor surgery has been dangerously delayed due to his incarceration.

His lawyer, Louis Angeles, condemned the situation, telling the BBC that Mr. Singh is receiving only “medical check-ups” rather than the necessary treatment, labeling the detention as “unethical.”

The legal grounds for his detention are murky. ICE initially cited a 1999 case involving a public phone misdemeanor and later used a supposedly unfiled 2008 Illinois forgery charge to block a judge-granted $10,000 bond. Ms. Virk stated that a private investigator hired by the family could find no evidence of the forgery case, strongly suggesting that authorities may have confused him with another individual.

Mr. Singh’s unexpected detention, despite his long-term residency and US-citizen family, reinforces critics’ claims that the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policy is sweeping up far more than just “the worst of the worst.”

The case follows the highly publicized September deportation of 73-year-old Sikh grandmother Harjit Kaur, who had lived in the US for over three decades. These incidents have sparked widespread anger and concern within the Sikh and wider immigrant communities, who feel long-term residents and those following legal processes are being unfairly targeted.

With Mr. Singh’s health worsening and his family struggling to maintain contact, his case is set to be heard on October 14th, a date that will determine the fate of a man who has built his entire adult life on American soil.