University of San Francisco Calls for Release of Nurse Ann Lawani From ICE Custody

The University of San Francisco has stepped up calls for the release of Ann Lawani, a nurse and professor at the school, nearly two months after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested her at her home in Lodi, California. The Guardian reported the calls on Nov. 12.

Eileen Fry-Bowers, dean of the university's nursing school, said of Lawani: "She needs to come home." Lawani, 39, steers two programs at the university, including a master's entry program for students who did not previously study nursing.

Lawani came to the United States in 2007 and went on to earn master's and doctoral degrees in nursing before entering academia. Federal immigration officials say she entered the country that year on a visitor's visa and overstayed it. They say she was issued a final order of removal, the ruling that requires a person to leave the country, in August 2013.

Her lawyer, Natalia Santanna, says an immigration judge reached a different conclusion in 2013. According to Santanna, the judge found that Lawani would more likely than not face persecution in Nigeria and granted her withholding of removal, a form of protection that bars deportation to a country where a person is likely to be persecuted.

Since her arrest, Lawani has been moved among ICE detention centers in California, Texas and Louisiana. The Guardian described those transfers as opaque.

Her lawyers have filed a habeas petition, a court filing that asks a judge to rule on whether a person's detention is lawful. The petition is pending in the Eastern District of California, a federal court.

Earlier, in late October, Representative Josh Harder, who represents Lawani's district, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin about her case. In the letter, Harder raised concerns that Lawani received no notice before her arrest and that her whereabouts did not appear in ICE's online detainee database.