A Nun Was Walking to Sunday Mass, ICE Detained Her Anyway

Sister Leticia Ugboaja says she was thinking about that morning’s Bible readings as she walked to Sunday Mass in McAllen, Texas. Wearing her religious habit and carrying only a rosary and cellphone, she never expected two armed ICE officers to stop her on the sidewalk.

VIA ABC News

Nearly a month later, the 56-year-old Catholic nun is speaking publicly for the first time about what happened.

“Honestly, in that moment, I did not understand what was going on, what was happening to me,” Ugboaja said during a Thursday press conference.

Ugboaja, a registered nurse originally from Nigeria, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 28 while walking to Our Lady of Sorrows Church near the U.S.-Mexico border. She was released several hours later after parish leaders publicized her detention and members of Congress intervened on her behalf, but despite her release, Ugboaja says the experience reflects something much larger than her own case.

“There are many others in this same situation,” she said, referring to immigrants who have been granted legal protections in the United States yet continue living with uncertainty about whether they could be detained.

According to her attorney, Carlos Garcia, an immigration judge denied Ugboaja’s asylum application in 2019 but granted her protection from removal after determining she would likely face torture if returned to Nigeria. Since then, Garcia says she has complied with every requirement imposed by immigration authorities, maintained legal work authorization, and built a life serving her community as both a nurse and a Catholic sister.

Garcia also alleges ICE intended to deport Ugboaja to a third country rather than Nigeria, a practice that has expanded under the Trump administration and has drawn legal challenges from immigration attorneys and human rights organizations. Supporters of the policy argue it helps manage immigration backlogs, while critics say it raises serious due process and humanitarian concerns.

For Ugboaja, one of the most painful parts of the ordeal had nothing to do with the hours she spent in custody; it was her repeatedly asking officers if she could simply attend Mass before being taken into detention… the answer, she says, was no.

“For me, a nun, not to go to Mass on Sunday, not to receive Communion, it was very, very heartbreaking for me.”

The case has become one of the latest flashpoints in the Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement campaign, which has increasingly swept up individuals who are living in the United States under humanitarian protections or while complying with ongoing immigration proceedings. Ugboaja remains scheduled to report to ICE again next week, and her long-term future in the country remains uncertain.

Whether viewed through the lens of immigration policy, religious freedom, or due process, Ugboaja says she hopes her experience encourages Americans to remember that behind every immigration case is a person whose life can change in an instant.

“I cannot stay quiet about what happened to me,” she said, “or about what is still happening to others.”