Lawmakers and USF Officials Call for Release of Nursing Professor Held by ICE

Lawmakers, colleagues and family members are calling for the release of Dr. Ann Lawani, a University of San Francisco nursing professor and Bay Area nurse who has been held in immigration detention since September, NBC Bay Area reported. KQED reported that Rep. Josh Harder, D-Stockton, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Oct. 20 demanding her return to California.

Why it matters: Lawani, a Lodi resident and a native of Nigeria, oversees USF’s master’s nursing program and works at John Muir Health. NBC said she was taken from her home in shackles about eight weeks ago, then moved from a Stockton detention center to El Paso and later to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center. KQED said she oversees 230 nursing students and is a caregiver for her 83-year-old father, who is hospitalized, according to a USF statement.

NBC said Lawani is 39 and has lived and worked in the United States for 21 years on a valid work permit, and that Harder said she was granted withholding of removal because of a threat of persecution in Nigeria. KQED’s account said Harder described her as living in the United States legally under judicial protection, and its summary said she has lived in the country legally for 13 years with no criminal record. Harder wrote that her whereabouts have not appeared in ICE’s online detainee locator, under a policy affecting people with final deportation orders, and that ICE has reportedly pursued removal to an undisclosed third country without giving her or her attorney the relevant documents.

“Dr. Lawani has spent her entire career in service to our community,” Harder said, arguing the case does not match ICE’s stated public-safety priorities. USF School of Nursing Dean Eileen Fry-Bowers told NBC she was “shocked” and “angry,” and told KQED the absence is harming students, accreditation work and safety-net partnerships. USF President Salvador Aceves said in an email on Tuesday that the family now wants the community to know. Lawani’s brother, Samuel, asked that she be returned home safely. NBC said the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond.