‘Nightmare doesn’t end’: Indian grandmother faces deportation despite green card

While President Donald Trump and his allies emphasize that immigration enforcement targets violent criminals living in the country illegally, ICE arrests and detentions have mostly involved people without criminal histories. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not find record of Vasamsetty being charged with any crimes.

ICE has the authority to apprehend any noncitizen it believes can be deported, and has set ambitious daily arrest quotas in the thousands. Immigration agents are coming off the highest number of monthly arrests recorded by the Trump administration — 51,000 in July.

“This is them trying to get their numbers where they can,” Parsonage said, referring to apprehensions like Vasamsetty.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said ICE arrested Vasamsetty because she is alleged to have “abandoned her status by violating residency conditions.” According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the legal immigration system, remaining outside the U.S. for an extended period of time can lead to residency abandonment.

In a charging document against Vasamsetty dated Aug. 11, immigration authorities note she was absent from the country from July 22, 2022 until Feb. 20, 2023.

The document was issued roughly three months after an immigration judge terminated a first attempt to deport Vasamsetty, immigration court records show.

Yashaswini Vasamsetty, one of Venkata Vasamsetty’s daughters, said her mother’s detention has devastated her family: “It’s a nightmare that doesn’t end.”

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

“She’s our pillar. Like, that’s my mom,” she said. “She is a beloved person in our community. … For somebody like her to be put in shackles, or to be detained in a detention center, it’s like: Would you do that to your grandmother?”

“She is not the type of person that these people (should) want to go after,” the daughter added.

Trip kick-started immigration problem

Vasamsetty’s immigration woes began in July 2022, when the North Carolina resident traveled back to India to see and care for her elderly father, who was in declining health.

If green card holders — also known as lawful permanent residents — stay outside the U.S. for longer than six months at a time, they are subject to “additional questioning” by immigration officials upon their return to the country, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

According to federal immigration law, green card holders returning to the country after an absence longer than six months are considered to be applicants for admission, meaning they must undergo an inspection to be authorized entry.

Extended absences can trigger green card abandonment, unless those absences are proven to be temporary in nature. Factors that go into consideration, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services, are the reasons for the trip and how long someone planned to be away, among others.

While in India, Vasamsetty caught COVID-19, delaying her return longer than intended, her daughter said.

Vasamsetty flew back to the U.S. in early 2023, roughly seven months after her departure. At the airport, immigration officials accused her of abandoning her green card, Parsonage said.

ICE put Vasamsetty in deportation proceedings, but allowed her to go home to North Carolina while the legal process played out in immigration court, with the condition that she attend regular check-ins at ICE’s Charlotte field office, according to her family and the text of a lawsuit seeking her release filed in Georgia federal court earlier this month.

In May, an immigration judge in Charlotte dismissed the deportation case, according to an immigration court document reviewed by the AJC. Vasamsetty’s attorney presented documents showing she had not intended to abandon her green card or her life in the U.S.

According to the judge’s order terminating the case, the government filed no evidence “in support of the charges of removability” against Vasamsetty.

“At that point, my client had no deportation proceedings against her at all,” Parsonage said. “She went back to having her green card, and I’m sure everybody just breathed a sigh of relief.”

But Vasamsetty still had a July check-in scheduled with ICE.

“She had no reason to go except that she’s chronically law-abiding,” Parsonage said.

Yashaswini Vasamsetty said the family decided to keep the appointment out of an “overabundance of caution.”

“She had no reason to be afraid because she was a law-abiding citizen,” Yashaswini Vasamsetty said. “But, if she didn’t go, then our fear was: Will we have ICE knocking down our doors?”

Vasamsetty attended the check-in with a copy of the judge’s order dismissing her deportation case, Parsonage said. She was asked to come back on Aug. 11. When she did so, ICE detained her and transferred her to Georgia.

The next day, the agency filed a new charging document against Vasamsetty, placing the Indian native back in deportation proceedings. The document, reviewed by the AJC, accuses her of lacking valid authorization to enter the U.S. when she returned from her trip in 2023.

More difficult to get out of detention

Before the start of the Trump administration, Parsonage said it was common for immigration authorities to avoid detaining many people with pending deportation cases.

“It used to be they had the discretion to do that, and they did it all the time,” she said.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

But now, she added, ICE is keeping nearly all of her clients behind bars. And once they’ve entered ICE custody, immigrants have fewer chances to leave because access to immigration bonds, which provide a pathway out of detention facilities, has been restricted.

Yashaswini Vasamsetty said her family is trying to help keep her mother positive and calm. She and her sister have come to Georgia to make her feel less alone.

“She’s holding up emotionally,” Yashaswini Vasamsetty said. “She’s strong. She’s, you know, she’s an immigrant mother, and immigrant mothers are strong.”

But there is concern about the impact of detention on her mother’s health. Vasamsetty is diabetic and requires regular insulin injections.

“We’re just really worried that the longer she stays there, the chances of it becoming a true emergency, a life and death scenario, it gets higher and higher,” Yashaswini Vasamsetty said. “And that’s what scares me.”

In addition to contesting the deportation in immigration court, Parsonage filed suit in Georgia federal court last week to compel ICE to release Vasamsetty from detention. The government has yet to file a response.

Yashaswini Vasamsetty said her mother’s treatment by ICE is discordant with the decades she and the rest of the family have spent as lawful residents in the country.

“She’s not somebody that just showed up yesterday, right?” Yashaswini Vasamsetty said. “She has deep roots in the country. She has paid into the system. She’s paid her dues.

“She is not somebody that belongs in a detention center.”