Overview:
Rep. Josh Harder is calling for Ann Lawani, a Lodi woman detained by federal immigration agents in September, to be returned to California.
The family of a Lodi woman detained by federal immigration agents in September spent days trying to locate her before learning she had been transferred to a detention center in Louisiana, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Ann Lawani was detained by federal immigration agents at her Lodi home on Sept. 16, taken later that day to a local holding facility, according to the Times.
There, she called her family. But in the days after, Lawani’s whereabouts were unknown, and he could not be found on a public database used to locate detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
The family would spend three days trying to locate Lawani, of Nigeria, before she phoned from a detention facility in Louisiana.
The family would spend three days trying to locate Lawani, a Nigerian native, before she phoned from a detention facility in Louisiana.
During her transfers, ICE allegedly attempted to deport Lawani to an undisclosed third country, said Rep. Josh Harder, D-Tracy, in an Oct. 20 letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin where he called for Lawani’s return to California as her immigration case continues.
“Her detention raises serious questions about the Department’s enforcement priorities and its treatment of individuals who pose no threat to public safety,” said Harder in the letter.
Lawani, 39, had lived in Lodi for 13 years, where she cared for her 83-year-old father, Harder said in a news release Tuesday renewing his call for her release. He also said Lawani was a professor at the University of San Francisco and worked as a nurse at John Muir Health in Concord.
In 2007, Lawani entered the U.S. on a visitor visa and later applied for asylum. While an immigration judge denied her asylum request in 2013, they ruled she could not be deported to Nigeria because she “more likely than not” faced persecution there.
Her work permit, issued the next year, would be one she would regularly renew, according to the Times. Her latest permit remained valid until 2029.
The Department of Homeland Security told the Times that Lawani was detained because she had been ordered removed in 2013.
The practice of no longer disclosing where detainees are being held began on Sept. 15, officials with the immigration agency told the Associated Press. In late October, the American Immigration Lawyers Association and other immigrant rights organization filed a lawsuit challenging the practice, saying it interferes with lawyers and families trying to reach detainees.
Harder said there was no “apparent public safety justification” for detaining Lawani miles from her Lodi residence given her lack of criminal history and longstanding ties to the area.
“Our immigration enforcement system should focus on protecting communities from danger, not removing the individuals who dedicate their lives to serving them,” Harder said. “Dr. Lawani’s continued detention undermines that mission while imposing unnecessary harm on her family and the countless people who depend on her.”
Her absence, Harder continued, has disrupted campus life. Eileen K. Fry-Bowers, the San Francisco school’s nursing dean, said Lawani’s continued absence is causing “real and mounting harm” to the students and faculty she mentors.
“I speak with confidence to what I know firsthand: Dr. Ann Lawani is a person of exceptional professional accomplishment and moral character, deeply embedded in our university community, with responsibilities that hundreds of nursing students and, in turn, the patients they will someday care for, depend upon her fulfilling,” she said in a statement shared by Harder’s office.
Lawani’s brother, Samuel Lawani, who was interviewed by the Times, called her arrest “the worst time” of his life. In a statement shared by Harder, he described his sister’s abrupt detainment and transfer across the country as “simply evil and consequential.”
“My family and I want to see my sister returned home safely and as soon as possible,” he said. “Like so many families in our community, we want an end to the chaos caused by these agencies.”