A few hours before their release from a Virginia jail, 70-year-old Gokal Kapoor and his 69-year-old wife Shiela, who had been arrested a month ago at the instance of the Department of Home Security, thought they had no hopes of staying back in America, their home for about eight years.

The couple, who were released July 26, were being processed through the third week of July to be deported to Afghanistan. They had fled the then Taliban-ruled country because life as Hindus was becoming extremely difficult.

They arrived in America with their son, and took up low-paying jobs at Dulles Airport as they did not want to worry their well-placed relatives. They worked legally for the most part – he as a baggage handler and she an assistant to disabled passengers – until a few weeks ago when their work permit expired. On June 22, an immigrant judge denied their request for political asylum. Since America has ended the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the judge reasoned the couple could return, their lawyer Michael Maggio told India Abroad.

He had sent two of his lawyers to the jail to meet with the couple to discuss various issues related to their status and potential deportation, when he received the phone call from officials asking if he could send a lawyer to the jail to be with the Kapoors.

“I could not believe what I was hearing. They were being released,” Maggio said. “I told the officer that my lawyers were talking with the couple, in person and at that very moment.

“There have been so many bizarre things about this case,” he said. When the couple was arrested at their home, they were told, according to Sitara Nieves, niece of Gokal, that they were wanted in connection with a probe into security at Dulles.

“They were supposed to be back in two hours,” Nieves said in a faxed message, adding that it took Maggio two days to locate them. “How could they have posed a security risk,” she continued. “They are so law abiding they do not even jaywalk.”

The Kapoors need not have been in jail at all if they had good lawyer-ing help, said Maggio, who was asked to be their lawyer after their arrest. “Here we had a couple from Afghanistan who had fled one of the most brutal regimes in the world,” he continued, “and they could not get asylum? Their cases were not done properly. There was no due process.”

The Kapoor couple stood vindicated, he said, because of a combination of lawyer-ing, community and political pressure.

He said there was pressure from a number of congressmen and senators, especially Rick Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania. Senator Arlen Specter, another prominent Republican from Pennsylvania, also supported the Kapoors.

The Pennsylvania Congressmen got involved mainly because the younger brother of Gokal, Wishwa Kapoor, lives in the state and is chief of general internal medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

“My biggest obstacle was the institutional self-righteousness,” Maggio said. “The detainees were not shown enough compassion,” he said, “especially considering they are not in good health. It is even absurd to think that the Department of Homeland Security could not understand the plight of this elderly couple,” Maggio said. “There was even serious suggestions to send them back to Afghanistan.” The couple is now out of jail but not totally free, yet – Maggio now has to initiate legal action to get them permanent residency.

He said their asylum case could have been reopened when they were still in detention. “But they were under great trauma, especially Mrs. Kapoor.

“I wonder who ever thought of deporting them,” he continued. “The government there is barely functioning. There is no proper air connection. The whole thing, including the use of a special agent to accompany them, would have cost the American government more than $10,000.”

“Given the limited resources of the Department of Homeland Security, and the fact that it has to do a lot of work to catch the really dangerous criminals and terrorists, why did they go after an elderly Afghan couple who is no threat to anyone? And why was this couple being sent to one of the most dangerous countries in the world? Is this the best way to use tax-payers’ money?”

The plight of Kapoors caught the attention of several newspapers and magazines, including Newsday, Pittsburgh Gazette, and LA Weekly. Calling the detention strange, novelist Stephen Elliot asked in LA Weekly a week before the couple was released: “Are we really going to deport them (to Afghanistan)? I mean, can’t we as a society, just apologize, send the old people home, scarred but still alive? Is this what America has become? Are there no checks and balances in this broken system?”

Maggio said: “We are all glad that the Kapoors are out of jail but there are thousands of other Kapoors in jails across in America because of bureaucratic apathy, indifference or insensitivity. It was hardest on Mrs. Kapoor,” he continued. “It was like her dignity and self-respect were being robbed. She was also separated from her husband and was surrounded by hardened criminals. She suffered an enormous amount of stress. By releasing them, at least the government showed it can right a wrong. But it should never be this hard to correct this kind of situation.”

The Kapoor couple is still trying to make sense of what has happened to them in the past month, said family members who have advised them not to speak to the media. Dr. Wishwa Kapoor told reporters that his brother and sister-in-law looked considerably older than they did at the time of their arrest.