A Nigerian nursing professor in the United States, Dr. Ann Lawani, has spent nearly two months in immigration detention. This is despite having a valid work permit and a decade-old immigration court ruling that protects her from deportation to Nigeria.
Lawani, 39, was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at her home in Lodi, California, on September 16, 2026. Since then, she has been transferred across several states. She also disappeared from ICE’s online detainee locator and eventually ended up in a detention facility in Louisiana.
Her case has raised serious questions about how US immigration authorities treat people who have lived and worked in the country for years, particularly when an immigration judge has already recognised the danger they could face if returned home. 
And for Lawani, the biggest concern is that the agency appears determined to enforce a 2013 removal order while her lawyers insist it is ignoring the protection granted alongside it.
Ann Lawani: The Nigerian professor ICE took from her home
Lawani is no ordinary immigration detainee. She is an assistant professor and programme director at the University of San Francisco’s School of Nursing and Health Professions, where she oversees about 230 nursing students.
She also works as a nurse at John Muir Health. Lawani has also helped train healthcare professionals while remaining involved in frontline medical care, including during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Nigerian-born academic also cares for her 83-year-old father, who is currently hospitalised.
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ICE agents arrested her at her home in Lodi on September 16. California State Senator Jerry McNerney said officers shackled her ankles, waist and hands during the arrest. She managed to contact her family once from a holding facility in Stockton. But after ICE transferred her, her relatives and lawyer struggled to establish where she was.
Her attorney, Natalia Vieira Santana, said they moved her through facilities in California and Texas before transferring her to Louisiana. Lawani eventually contacted her family three days after they lost track of her.
She has remained in detention since then.
Why ICE made Ann Lawani disappear from its detainee locator
One of the troubling problems Lawani’s family faced during her arrest was when they couldn’t locate her through ICE’s online detainee locator.
This was not necessarily an isolated administrative error. On September 15, a day before her arrest, ICE reportedly introduced a policy that removed many detainees with final deportation orders from the public database.
An Associated Press investigation reported that the change affected thousands of people, making it harder for relatives and lawyers to establish where detainees were being held.
The consequences are obvious. Imagine your relative is taken away by immigration officers. They are transferred across state lines and then disappear from the very system designed to help you locate people in custody. You are left making calls, chasing information and hoping the person can somehow contact you.
Immigration lawyers and rights organisations argue that the policy obstructs access to legal representation. It also makes it harder for detainees to challenge their detention or deportation before authorities move them again.
Four legal services organisations filed a federal lawsuit on October 28 challenging the policy. They argue that it violates federal administrative law and interferes with lawyers’ and detainees’ ability to communicate.
The lawsuit does not mean a court has already declared the policy unlawful. However, the concerns are substantial: keeping people in custody while making their whereabouts difficult to establish raises serious questions about transparency, access to justice and basic human rights.
The 2013 ruling that could have protected Ann Lawani from deportation
The most controversial part of Lawani’s case dates back to 2013.
An immigration judge rejected her asylum application. However, they also ruled that she could not be deported to Nigeria because she was more likely than not to face persecution if returned.
That distinction is important. The judge granted her withholding of removal, a form of legal protection that prevents the US government from sending someone to a particular country where they face a serious risk of persecution.
It does not automatically grant permanent residency or cancel every removal order. It also does not necessarily prevent deportation to a third country where the person would not face the same danger.
Nevertheless, the protection means Nigeria is not an available destination for Lawani’s deportation under that ruling. She has also renewed her work authorisation over the years, with her current permit reportedly valid until 2029.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), however, says she overstayed her admission in 2007. It says she received a final removal order in 2013 and remains in custody pending deportation. It has also argued that a work permit does not confer immigration status.
That is the government’s position. Lawani’s legal team says it leaves out the crucial fact that the immigration judge granted her protection from removal to Nigeria on the same day the judge issued the order.
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ICE reportedly explored deporting the Nigerian professor to another country
The controversy has become even more serious following claims that ICE has explored deporting Lawani to an undisclosed third country.
US Congressman Josh Harder, who represents California’s 9th Congressional District, raised the issue in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. Harder said ICE had reportedly pursued her removal to another country without providing Lawani or her lawyer with the relevant documents.
He demanded that the government disclose the proposed destination, provide supporting travel documentation and explain the legal basis for keeping her in detention.
There is a legal complication here: withholding of removal to Nigeria does not automatically prevent the US from considering another country. However, any proposed destination must still meet the relevant legal requirements, including protection against persecution or torture.
The problem, according to Harder and Lawani’s legal team, is that they have not received the information needed to understand or challenge the proposed deportation.
Ann Lawani’s detention sparks outrage at her university
Back in California, Lawani’s absence has left colleagues, students and family members demanding answers.
University of San Francisco nursing dean Eileen Fry-Bowers described the arrest as a devastating disruption to the school community, saying: “It feels like a bomb was dropped into our school.”
Lawani’s brother, Samuel, also condemned the treatment of his sister, describing it as “simply evil and consequential”.
Harder has called for her release under an order of supervision and her return to California. Her lawyers are also pursuing legal action to secure her release.
The latest reports say Lawani remains in ICE custody in Louisiana, nearly eight weeks after her arrest.
For Nigerians watching this case, the uncomfortable question is not simply why an immigration agency is enforcing an old removal order. It is why the government appears to be treating a woman with years of professional service, a valid work permit and judicial protection against deportation to her home country as though none of those circumstances deserves serious consideration.
Lawani’s case is now about more than one Nigerian professor’s immigration status. It is also about whether people held by the state can be located, reach their lawyers and challenge decisions that could fundamentally alter their lives.
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