Jailed for a Minor Offence in 1999, Indian Man Pays the Price in Trump's America

Paramjit Singh, who holds a green card, was caught by ICE at Chicago airport—and put in a detention centre.

Paramjit Singh, his wife Lakhwinder Kaur, and their children.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint) 

"My husband is growing weaker. In the few minutes I get in a day to speak to him, he cries sometimes. My son has his exams coming up, but he can't focus... He keeps thinking about how he can get his dad out. He's closer to his father than he is to me," Lakhwinder Kaur, Paramjit Singh's wife, tells The Quint.

In Trump's America, anybody can be hauled up for the slightest hint of human error—regardless of how long ago and under what circumstances the error was committed.

The latest testament to this assertion is Paramjit Singh's case, a 48-year-old Indiana resident who holds a green card. Singh has been detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in connection with a minor offence that he unknowingly committed 26 years ago.

The Price of a Small Payphone Violation

The year was 1999. Singh was 22 years old at the time and had immigrated to the US from India just five years ago with his father, who held US citizenship. The family had bought a gas station in Liberty, Indiana that Singh had been tasked to operate.

There was a phone at the gas station and people used to come to the store adjoining the station and make calls, sometimes for hours at a stretch. Everybody working at the station, including Singh, thought that the phone was free, so they started dialing people back home in India.

However, the young man was mistaken. Somebody complained to the local sheriff about what was going on, and Singh was slapped with a 'felony'—instead of a 'misdemeanour'—for a relatively minor offence. Regardless, he was ordered to pay a fine, spend 10 days in prison, and partake in community service.

After having done all of that, the case was closed for good in the year 2000. Singh put the episode behind him, vowed to be more careful in the future, and continued to be an upstanding citizen. Over the years he expanded on his father's business and became a successful entrepreneur. The case was long gone and forgotten.

Until 30 July 2025, when Singh and his son were stopped at Chicago's O'Hare Airport while returning from India.

'No Reason Given for Detention' 

Singh's flight landed in Chicago at 11 am on 30 July. His brother, also an Indiana resident, and his daughter had come to the airport to receive them.

"At around 12:30 pm we got a call from my uncle saying that they had got their luggage, but it might take a while because they were being taken to an interrogation room," Singh's niece Kiran Virk recalls to The Quint.

The family waited outside the airport for around seven hours. Phone calls went unanswered, questions to airport officials were ignored or diverted. Nobody told them what was going on.

At 7 pm, officials asked them to come inside the airport to take Singh's luggage and custody of his son.

"When I went in and showed my ID, they let his son go in my custody. But when I asked about my uncle all they said was, 'We're going to be detaining Mr. Paramjit and keeping him in custody overnight'. No reason was given," Virk adds.

The overnight custody turned into five days. Singh's son repeatedly called the airport to find out about what was going on with his father, but nobody would tell him anything.

"Not a single person gave us any information about his case," says Virk, "They just kept saying, 'We don't know. The other officer would know'."

Later, however, Singh was allowed to speak to his son over the phone for two minutes.

Paramjit Singh with his children. 

(Photo: Accessed by The Quint) 

Held in Airport for 5 Days, Hospitalised, Family Uninformed

While at the airport, Singh, who has been suffering from a brain tumor and heart complications, fell sick and was taken to the emergency room. Authorities had put him in a cold room with no blankets or additional clothes, his family alleges. They hadn't even allowed him to keep his luggage, which contained his clothes and medicines, they add.

"Since the brain tumor diagnosis he's been very immune to cold. Even during summers he has a full-sleeves on," Singh's niece says.

After five days the family got a call from the airport saying that Singh was being shifted to a detention centre in Indiana. They were also told that his detention was in connection with the 1999 payphone case.

However, they weren't informed about his medical condition and hospitalisation. They only found out about it when a medical bill arrived at their house a month later.

Currently in custody at the detention centre, Singh hasn't been receiving proper medical treatment, according to his family.

"The authorities got his medical tests done for the first time only on 17 September. That, too, after we wrote to US Congressman Marlin Stutzman, requesting his help in the case. He emailed ICE, and only after that did they agree."

Kiran Virk, Paramjit Singh's niece

'ICE Using Unethical Means To Keep Him in Detention'

Singh's family and lawyer allege that ICE has been using a number of questionable means to keep him in their custody.

During his first court date on 15 August, the lawyers representing ICE argued that Singh was actually an "illegal alien". This despite the fact that he has held a green card for over 30 years. Moreover, the family says, the prosecution has been using tactics to prevent them from posting a bond to get him released. They also contended that Singh was charged with a forgery case in Illinois in 2008—which, according to his family, he has nothing to do with.

In order to prove this in court, Singh's family even got his background checked from the Illinois State Police and private investigators.

"He doesn't have any record on his name in Illinois," his niece says. "We don't know whether they're mistaking him with someone else. We have no idea what they're putting on him, and for what reason."

The prosecution has also allegedly been "twisting" certain facts from the 1999 payphone case. According to Singh's family, while the judge at the time had sentenced Singh to 1.5 years in the case, he was supposed to serve only 10 days and the rest of the sentence was dismissed. What ICE put in their documents was that Singh is supposed to serve 1.5 years in jail and only 10 days had been dismissed, thus flipping the period of incarceration.

Moreover, in 2023 Singh had applied in court to get the 'felony' charge in the 1999 case downgraded to a 'misdemeanor' as he was not being allowed to apply for US citizenship because his record had a 'felony' attached to it. The judge accepted his plea and ordered law enforcement to delete the 'felony' charge from their records. Singh's legal team even brought this up in court to get him discharged, but to no avail.

"The appeal against my client is frivolous, it has no merit," Singh's attorney Luis Angeles says while speaking to The Quint.

"The government brought up allegations that weren't disclosed in previous hearings. We believe that ICE is using tactics which are unethical to detain Mr Singh."

Luis Angeles, Singh's attorney

'He Keeps Crying on the Phone'

Singh's detention has left his wife and children, a son aged 17 and a daughter aged 14, in disarray.

"My husband has visited India at least 20 times in the last three decades. We even went to Canada and Mexico, but he never faced any issue with immigration authorities," Singh's wife Lakhwinder Kaur tells The Quint.

When her husband was detained, Kaur was in India with their daughter. After hearing about what had happened, she took the next available flight back and reached the US on 4 August.

Kaur says that she speaks to her husband every day from the detention centre for no more than five minutes, as that is the time limit imposed by the authorities. Moreover, only he is allowed to call his family, not vice versa.

"We worry about his condition. The tumor worsens under stress. He has also lost so much weight. It's hard to live without family," she says, holding back tears.

Paramjit Singh and his family. 

(Photo: Accessed by The Quint) 

Having reconciled with the fact that Singh's case won't be dropped immediately, his family have been requesting for him to be let out on parole so that he can get urgent surgeries conducted to treat his tumor. His niece says that he has already fallen sick thrice while being in custody.

There are currently 58,766 people detained by ICE as on 7 September 2025, as per TRAC Immigration. What's even more unsettling than the number of detainees is that over 70 percent of them have no criminal conviction.

Also, as per data released by ICE, detentions rose by a staggering 56 percent between December 2024 and August 2025.

(The Quint has reached out to the ICE Field Office in Chicago and O'Hare Airport in connection with Paramjit Singh's case. This article will be updated as and when they respond.)