‘Arrest first, plan later’: Indian-origin Texas woman’s lawyer Minu Batra says Trump 2.0 uses legal loophole –

While the Department of Homeland Security describes Minu Batra as 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.

In an interview with CNN, Ahluwalia said that Minu Batra was never asked to appear at any ICE office in the last 26 years and suddenly without any prior notice, she was arrested at the airport when she was traveling for work. The Department of Homeland Security said Batra came to the United States illegally at an unknown date and location, and obtained a final order of removal in 2000.Ahluwalia said Batra was granted a stay of removal, which means she cannot be deported to India.

But Ahluwalia said Trump 2.0 found a loophole in that if an individual could not be deported to their country of origin, they could be deported to a third country. But the administration has not revealed what it plans to do after it makes the arrest first and plans later. Ahluwalia explained that when someone is granted this non-removable status to the country they came from, they can live in the United States unless the Department of Homeland Security files a case in the same court that granted relief to reopen the case.

This only happens when there is a felony case against the individual.

Another possibility is that the Department of Homeland Security is requesting that the case be reopened, citing changed circumstances in the country in question. But DHS did not follow this due process in the Minu Batra case. Ahluwalia said the administration does this in several cases where they try to deport people to a third country.The lawyer said the Department of Homeland Security cannot send Batra to India but they have not 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, got married, had four children, and continued to work as an interpreter because she was fluent in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, and English. She was arrested on March 17 at Harlingen International Airport and has been in ICE custody since then.