USF Nursing Program Director Held by ICE Mid-Semester as Court Weighs Her Case
Image source: University of San Francisco via Facebook
Dr. Ann Lawani, a practicing registered nurse who directs the statewide Master’s Entry MSN program at the University of San Francisco (USF), was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at her home in Lodi, California, on Sept. 16, about three weeks into the fall semester. By the afternoon of Sept. 18, she had been moved to Louisiana, where she remains in detention.
She has been under a final deportation order since 2013, but the same immigration judge also barred the government from sending her back to Nigeria, according to her attorney. A federal judge has blocked her removal while he decides whether her detention is lawful.
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Lawani, 39, is a Nigerian-born nurse whose career has centered on seriously ill patients and on training the nurses who care for them.
- At the bedside: She works weekends on the cardiovascular stroke unit at John Muir Health, according to The New York Times.
- License: State board of nursing records show she holds an active, unrestricted California RN license, first issued in 2018.
- During the pandemic: She was promoted to lead clinical nurse on the COVID unit at Sharp Coronado Hospital near San Diego, according to a 2021 University of San Diego profile.
- Specialty: Her research focuses on palliative care and end-of-life transitions, and she previously worked as a clinical supervisor at Sharp Hospice.
- In the classroom: She is an assistant professor and program director in USF’s School of Nursing and Health Professions, with a PhD and MSN from the University of San Diego. Eileen Fry-Bowers, the school’s dean and a former instructor of hers, recruited her to USF in 2023, the Times reported.
- At home: She lives with and cares for her 83-year-old father.
Lawani oversees the education of 230 nursing students, coordinates 51 faculty members, and manages partnerships with 38 clinical sites, according to a letter to DHS from U.S. Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.), who represents Lodi.
On the morning of her arrest, Lawani texted Fry-Bowers that she might be late for a meeting, according to the Times.
The arrest left the school covering her responsibilities mid-semester. “It, frankly, it feels like a bomb was dropped into our school,” Fry-Bowers told ABC10.
In a statement USF posted on Nov. 11, Fry-Bowers said Lawani’s absence “causes real and mounting harm” to students and faculty, to curriculum work the school needs for accreditation, and to the safety-net partnerships Lawani built. “Our students continue to bear the impact of Ann’s absence, and her knowledge cannot be easily replaced,” USF President Salvador D. Aceves said in the same statement.
Faculty like Lawani are in short supply nationally. In an October 2025 survey, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing counted 1,588 vacant full-time faculty positions at the 863 nursing schools it surveyed, and 80.9% of them required or preferred a doctoral degree like hers. Nurse.org’s Nurse Educator Report looks at why those roles are hard to fill.
“I felt like my stomach just dropped,” former student Vanessa Laucirica told ABC10 of learning about the arrest. She recalled that when many nurses left the profession during the pandemic, Lawani “just kept showing up.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told ABC10 that Lawani entered the U.S. in 2007 on a visitor visa and applied for asylum. An immigration judge denied that application in 2013 and ordered her removed.
“She received due process and was issued a final order of removal on August 6, 2013. She will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the United States,” the department said.
Her attorney, Natalia Vieira Santanna, called that “not a complete picture.” The same judge, on the same day, granted Lawani withholding of removal, a protection that bars the government from deporting her to Nigeria because she would more likely than not face persecution there, according to her attorney and the Times, which also reported that DHS did not appeal that decision and issued her a work permit in 2014. She has renewed it through 2029. DHS told KCRA that “work authorization does not confer legal status in the U.S.” It did not address the withholding grant in its statements to KCRA, ABC10 or the Times.
Withholding of removal protects against return to one country only. It does not cancel the removal order, so the government can still seek to deport the person to a different country, under separate legal procedures. Unlike asylum, it also does not lead to a green card or citizenship. ICE has directed officers to review these cases for possible removal to a third country and re-detention. Harder’s letter says ICE has reportedly sought to deport Lawani to an undisclosed third country. DHS has not publicly named one.
Where Her Case Stands
Lawani’s attorney filed a federal challenge to her detention on Sept. 18. A Sept. 29 order from the judge in the case, drawing partly on ICE’s own records, describes her first two days in custody.
- Moved overnight: She was booked out of a California detention facility at 5 a.m. on Sept. 17 for transfer to Texas. The booking log noted “Attorney Notified: No.”
- Hard to find: Her attorney emailed government lawyers twice asking where she was and got no response, and she did not appear in ICE’s online detainee locator. The day before her arrest, DHS had stopped listing most detainees with final deportation orders in that locator, the Times reported. A Nurse.org search of the locator on Nov. 11 still returned no results for her.
- Case kept in California: The government asked to move the case to Louisiana. The judge declined, finding that “no diligent attorney could have known” where she was.
- Deportation on hold: The judge barred the government from removing her while he decides whether ICE followed the required steps before re-detaining someone who had previously been released.
Both sides have filed their arguments, and as of Nov. 11 the court docket showed no ruling. Harder has asked DHS to release Lawani under supervision and return her to California while the case continues, and National Nurses United, the largest U.S. registered nurse union, has called for her release.
A ruling in her favor would address her detention, not the 2013 removal order. As of Nov. 11, a GoFundMe for her legal and family costs had raised more than $50,000, and a Change.org petition calling for her release had more than 15,000 signatures. Fry-Bowers started both, according to USF.
“I have given most of my adult life to serving my patients and students,” Lawani told the Times by phone from detention.
Earlier this year, ICE also detained a nurse and nun known as Sister Letty, who had legal status, and later released her.
