The visiting room of the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Centre in Bakersfield, California, is small, loud, and crowded. When Harjit Kaur's family arrived to see her, they could barely hear her - and the first words they caught shattered them.
She said, 'I would rather die than be in this facility. May God just take me now,' recalled her distraught daughter-in-law, Manjit Kaur.
Harjit Kaur, 73, who unsuccessfully applied for asylum in the US, and has lived in California for more than three decades, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials on 8 September, sparking shock and sympathy from the Sikh community across the state and beyond.
Harjit Kaur had filed several asylum appeals over the years which were rejected, with the last denial in 2012, her lawyer said.
Since then, she had been asked to report to immigration authorities every six months. She was arrested in San Francisco when she had gone for a check-in.
It comes amid a wider crackdown by the Donald Trump administration on immigration, and especially alleged illegal immigrants in the US.
The issue is a sensitive one - the country is grappling with how to deal with the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who arrive at its borders every year. More than 3.7 million asylum cases are pending in immigration courts.
Trump has said he wants to deport the worst of the worst, but critics say immigrants without criminal records who follow due process have also been targeted.
Over 70% of people arrested by ICE have no criminal conviction, said California State Senator Jesse Arreguin in a statement demanding Harjit Kaur's release. Now, they are literally going after peaceful grandmothers. This shameful act is harming our communities.
US Congressman John Garamendi, who represents the Californian district where Harjit Kaur lives, has submitted a request to ICE for her release.
This administration's decision to detain a 73-year-old woman - a respected member of the community with no criminal record who has faithfully reported to ICE every six months for more than 13 years - is one more example of the misplaced priorities of Trump's immigration enforcement, a spokesperson said.
In an emailed statement, ICE told the BBC that Harjit Kaur had exhausted decades of due process and that an immigration judge had ordered her removal in 2005.
Harjit Kaur came to the US in 1991 with her two minor sons after the death of her husband, her lawyer Deepak Ahluwalia told the BBC. Her daughter-in-law Manjit Kaur said that the young widow wanted to shield her sons from and escape the political turbulence in India's Punjab state at the time.
Harjit Kaur, who lives in Hercules city in the San Francisco Bay Area, was working as a seamstress at a sari store for the past two decades and pays her taxes. Asylum applicants across the US are allowed to live, work and pay taxes legally once their claim is officially filed and in process.
Even after her final asylum appeal was rejected in 2012, her job permit was renewed every year.
Her family is now focused on getting her out of detention.
You can put an ankle monitor on her. We can check in with immigration when you want, said Manjit Kaur. Just get her out of the facility and when you provide us the travel documents, she will self-deport to India.
Her supporters are planning to hold more protests, advocating for justice and drawing attention to the need for compassionate immigration policies. Harjit Kaur, a grandmother and pillar of support in her community, symbolizes the need for systemic change in the treatment of immigrants in detention and the importance of understanding their human stories.
