Ann Lawani was detained by ICE in September and then disappeared from the agency's public detainee database. For three days, her family could not learn where she was being held, and her attorney had to push ahead with a habeas corpus petition without a clear public record of her location.
Lawani was taken from her Lodi home, briefly called her family from a nearby holding facility, and then fell out of ICE's public locator system. Eight weeks later, she was reported at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, while her 83-year-old father, who has cancer, remained behind in California.
California detention and Louisiana transfer
Lawani is a Nigerian native who has lived in the US for 21 years and held a work permit valid through 2029. Her family sought help from USF in finding an attorney, and Natalia Vieira Santanna filed a habeas corpus petition in the Eastern District of California on September 18. That filing forced the case into court even as Lawani's whereabouts stayed out of view.
Lawani's colleagues said she was transferred from Stockton to El Paso, Texas, before being moved to the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center. That route mattered because the location gap made it harder to know which court should hear the challenge, and the judge later found that no diligent attorney could have known Lawani was in Louisiana.
Department of Homeland Security response
The Department of Homeland Security said Lawani was detained because of a deportation order issued in 2013. But an immigration judge found in 2013 that Lawani would likely face persecution if returned to Nigeria, and she was reportedly granted legal protection from deportation to Nigeria that year. The agency did not address that later protection in the material available for this case.
US Representative Josh Harder sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding Lawani's immediate return to California and asking about her possible deportation to a third country. Harder said ICE pursued Lawani's removal to an undisclosed country without giving her or her attorney the relevant documentation, and he said, "This goes against everything ICE has publicly said," and, "They're saying they are keeping our community safe and prioritizing folks who are threatening public safety. This is exactly the opposite."
Eastern District of California ruling
On September 29, a judge rejected the government's request to transfer the case to Louisiana, barred deportation while the habeas case is pending, and ordered DHS to explain why Lawani should not be released. That ruling keeps the dispute in the Eastern District of California and leaves the next move with DHS, which must answer in court before Lawani's detention challenge can advance.
For Lawani, the practical issue is still the same one that began after the phone call from the holding facility: her family and attorney need a public trail to match the detention to the court case, and ICE's missing entry made that far harder than it should have been.
