Indian Subjected To Degrading Treatment In ICE Custody

Photo: Human Rights Watch

India-West News Desk

WASHINGTON, DC — Immigration detainees in Florida have faced degrading, dehumanizing, and medically negligent treatment under the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on July 21.

Among the individuals spotlighted is Harpinder Singh Chauhan, a 56-year-old British entrepreneur of Indian origin, who endured months of mistreatment while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

Chauhan, who had lived in the United States since 2016 on an investor visa, ran several small businesses in Florida and had a pending EB-5 green card petition. Despite his legal presence, he was detained by ICE officers on February 11 over tax issues stemming from a failed franchise and held without clear justification.

Human Rights Watch said Chauhan was denied critical medications, including insulin for diabetes and an inhaler for asthma. After arrest, he was shackled for seven hours in a transport van and then confined for nearly four days in freezing, overcrowded holding cells at Krome Detention Center with no beds or showers. “I used my shoes as a pillow,” he told Human Rights Watch.

Over the following month, Chauhan was transferred between three facilities—Krome, FDC, and BTC. At each, according to the report, he suffered worsening health conditions.

In Krome, amid a tuberculosis outbreak, he contracted a respiratory illness. At FDC, officers threatened him and denied him a cell with working plumbing. At BTC, after collapsing in a dinner line, he was hospitalized for suspected cardiac distress—but his son Aaron was unable to locate him for days due to ICE’s refusal to release information, even as the hospital listed him under the alias “Hank Campbell.”

Human Rights Watch reported that staff mocked Chauhan’s name, delayed medical care, and failed to return personal belongings, including his passport. Chauhan was finally deported in June, weeks after a judge ordered his removal to the UK, due to ICE’s mishandling of documents.

This case, Human Rights Watch warned, reflects broader patterns of abuse and negligence exacerbated by overcrowding and punitive detention policies under Executive Order 14159.