Texas nun detained by ICE speaks out for the first time since her release

A Texas nun who was taken into immigration custody last month while walking to Sunday Mass in her habit has spoken out for the first time.

Sister Leticia Ugboaja was released several hours after being detained on 28 June by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in a town near the border with Mexico.

“Honestly, in that moment, I did not understand what was going on, what was happening to me,” she said at a news conference at Our Lady of Sorrows church in McAllen.

“Sunday Mass is obligatory … For me, a nun, not to go to mass on Sunday, not to receive communion, It was very, very heartbreaking for me,” she said.

Ugboaja said she wanted to speak out to help others, and pleaded for people to have the chance to be heard before being taken into custody.

What I am asking is just simple … Just to give them the chance, give them opportunity so that they can be heard,” she said.

“I believe every person in this situation like me deserves to be heard, … deserves to be given attention and opportunity, and to give them another chance to say what they have.”

She was released after social media posts by parish officials brought attention to her case and Congress members intervened.

Her attorney, Carlos Garcia, said Thursday that in 2019 an immigration judge denied her application for asylum but also granted her protection from removal because she was likely to face torture in Nigeria.

He said Ugboaja, who is also a nurse, has complied with everything required of her and had permission to work in the US.

“There are many others in this same situation, people who have been given some form of protection under our laws, who have followed every rule asked of them, and who still live with uncertainty,” said Ugboaja.

Garcia said she wasn’t given much explanation as to why she was taken into custody but was told that the US planned to remove her to a third country.

Lawyers and human rights groups have criticised the Trump administration’s third-country removal policy, which has faced legal challenges.

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not immediately respond to a request to comment on Ugboaja’s case and did not respond to requests for comment after her detention in June.

Her lawyer said she has a check-in with ICE set for next week.

President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown - including at sensitive sites such as places of worship - has prompted faith leaders to adjust their response to church members who have become too afraid to attend.

Some have encouraged online attendance, while others have offered help doing errands such as grocery shopping for people too fearful to leave their homes.