A San Francisco nursing professor has spent nearly two months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, prompting former students and colleagues to call for her release.
Dr. Ann Lawani, a 39-year-old assistant professor at the University of San Francisco, was arrested at her home in Lodi, California, on September 16. She was later transferred to an immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
Lawani’s attorney, Natalia Vieira Santanna, said her client was moved from Stockton to Bakersfield, then El Paso, before being sent to Louisiana. Lawani also worked as a nurse for John Muir Health in the Bay Area.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Lawani, who is from Nigeria, overstayed a visitor visa and was subject to a final removal order issued in 2013.
‘She received due process and was issued a final order of removal on August 6, 2013,’ the DHS told ABC10.
The agency said Lawani would remain detained while arrangements were made for her removal from the United States.
Vanessa Laucirica, one of Lawani’s former students, said she was stunned when she learned that the professor had been detained. ‘I felt like my stomach just dropped,’ she said.
Eileen Fry-Bowers, dean and professor at the University of San Francisco’s School of Nursing and Health Professions, said the impact of Lawani’s absence had been ‘profoundly felt’ across the school.
Dr. Ann Lawani, 39, was arrested at her Lodi, California, home on September 16 and has remained in ICE custody
The DHS said Lawani, a Nigerian national, overstayed a visitor visa and was subject to a 2013 removal order
Lawani was taken into custody about three weeks after the academic term began, leaving the university scrambling to find coverage for her responsibilities.
‘It’s been a challenge,’ Fry-Bowers told the outlet. ‘Frankly, it feels like a bomb was dropped into our school.’
As a program director, Lawani oversaw more than 200 master’s students at three university campuses.
By early Thursday morning, a petition demanding her release had collected nearly 16,000 signatures.
Rep. Josh Harder, a California Democrat, said there appeared to be ‘no apparent public safety justification for keeping Dr. Lawani detained thousands of miles from home while her case proceeds.’
On October 20, he wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, urging officials to return Lawani to California.
According to The New York Times, Lawani is being held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile.
Lawani said ICE agents did not explain why she was being arrested when she asked them, and claimed they did not show her a warrant.
CHECK THIS OUT: Russian Ambassador to the US Alexander Darchiev Dies Suddenly at 66
Lawani was a program director and associate professor at the University of San Francisco and also worked as a nurse at John Muir Health
Lawani is being held at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, pictured
Vieira Santanna acknowledged that Lawani had a 2013 removal order but said DHS had failed to present the full context surrounding her case.
‘It is true that Dr. Lawani has an order from 2013,’ Vieira Santanna told the outlet. ‘However, at the same date that this order was entered by an immigration judge, she was also granted protection in the form of withholding of removal.’
The DHS said Lawani entered the United States in 2007 on a visitor visa and later sought asylum. An immigration judge rejected that application in 2013.
Vieira Santanna, however, said the judge determined that Lawani could not be returned to Nigeria because she would likely face persecution there.
The attorney also said Lawani had renewed her employment authorization, which was valid through 2029.
Lawani is awaiting a federal judge’s decision on a habeas corpus petition that argues the government violated her constitutional rights.
The filing asks for her release from detention, although it remains uncertain whether she would be permitted to stay in the United States.
The DHS said Lawani was detained because a final removal order had been issued against her on August 6, 2013
Lawani’s older brother, Sam Lawani, described the ordeal as ‘the worst time of my life.’
He said it felt as though his sister had been ‘siphoned into an abyss and there was nothing I could do about it.’
Immigration policy was cited as one factor behind the Republican Party’s heavy losses in the midterm elections.
Around six in 10 voters said immigration enforcement had gone too far and either ‘somewhat’ or ‘strongly’ disapproved of ICE’s handling of its duties, according to the Associated Press.
President Donald Trump recently named Stephen Miller as the new White House chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles.
Miller, among Trump’s most influential and longest-serving advisers, is widely known for his hardline position on immigration.
Critics have described him as the architect of several of Trump’s most divisive policies, including the separation of migrant families during deportation operations in the president’s first term.
The Daily Mail contacted ICE and the DHS, which oversees the agency, as well as Lawani’s attorney, Vieira Santanna, for comment.