From Nigeria to the United States, in social and medical circles anxiety is reaching fever pitch over the whereabouts of Ann Lawani.
The 39 year old Nigerian-born nursing professor and healthcare professional has been in the detention of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over a major US immigration controversy for nearly two months.
Beyond her physical whereabouts, family members, colleagues and students are now worried about her physical and emotional well-being since her arrest.
One of the person’s alarmed by it all, is Sen. Jerry McNerney California State Senator Jerry McNerney, by the fact that upon picking her from her Lodi, Louisiana home, September 16, they shackled her at the ankles, waist and hands before taking her away. McNemey not only condemns ICE for the disappearance of Ann Lawani but calls for her release.
Elsewhere, the assertion that the nursing professor has disappeared from ICE’s radar, is an additional cause for concern.
According to her attorney, Natalia Vieira Santana, ICE moved her to Bakersfield, then El Paso, then Louisiana, and somewhere along the way she stopped showing up in the online locator families use to find detainees.
According to reports she only reached her three days later she finally reached her.
“She needs to come home,” said Eileen Fry-Bowers, dean for the University of San Francisco’s nursing school.
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DHS says she was detained because of that 2013 removal order and will stay in custody until she’s deported. Her attorney says that leaves out the part where the same judge, on the same day, granted her protection.
Rep. Josh Harder says ICE has tried to deport her to an undisclosed third country without giving her lawyer the documents.
Lawani oversees 230 nursing students at the University of San Francisco and works as a nurse at John Muir Health.
She stayed on the front lines through COVID. She also cares for her 83-year-old father, who is now in the hospital.
ICE took her three weeks into the semester. “It feels like a bomb was dropped into our school,” said her dean, Eileen Fry-Bowers.
Her brother, Samuel Lawani, called what was done to his sister “simply evil and consequential.”
Her lawyers are waiting for a federal judge to rule on a petition for her release. She has now been held in Louisiana for eight weeks
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Harder noted that Lawani had been granted a legal status known as “withholding of removal” due to the threat of persecution in Nigeria, allowing her to live and work in the U.S. legally. Harder sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding Lawani’s immediate return to California and her family.
“This goes against everything ICE has publicly said,” Harder said. “They’re saying they are keeping our community safe and prioritizing folks who are threatening public safety. This is exactly the opposite.”
Colleagues and university leaders expressed deep frustration over the arrest of Lawani, who oversees the master’s nursing program at USF and works weekends in the cardiovascular stroke unit at John Muir Health.
They noted that she has spent her career caring for vulnerable patients, including serving on the front lines throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Her specialty is palliative and hospice care.
Additional reporting: The Guardian, NBC
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