Family members, colleagues and a U.S. congressman are demanding the immediate release and return of Dr. Ann Lawani, a highly regarded Bay Area nurse and USF professor who is being held in a federal immigration detention center.
Lawani, 39, a native of Nigeria who has lived and worked in the United States for 21 years on a valid work permit, was taken from her Lodi home in shackles by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement eight weeks ago.
Colleagues say Lawani was initially transported from a detention center in Stockton to El Paso, Texas, and subsequently transferred across the country to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, where she remains detained.
“Dr. Lawani has spent her entire career in service to our community, and ICE shows up on her doorstep while her elderly father is asleep in the home, whisks her away from her family, and then transports her across the entire part of the country,” said U.S. Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif.
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.
“I’m shocked. I’m angry. Here’s a person who has committed herself to caring for others. In fact, the most vulnerable, in that her specialty is palliative and hospice care, and yet she’s in this situation now. I find it unfathomable,” said Eileen Fry-Bowers, dean of the USF School of Nursing.
“I’m appalled that an individual like Dr. Lawani is in this circumstance. She’s one of the finest nurses that I know,” Fry-Bowers added, speaking alongside other supporters. “I get really upset thinking Anne is alone right now in a place where she’s not safe, and she needs to come home to us.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
