Federal agents arrested the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researcher on July 28 at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport for allegedly overstaying a visa.
Ameaka, who is originally from Cameroon, is now being held at the rural Louisiana facility about 90 miles outside Baton Rouge.
The transfer shifts the case away from Maryland just days after her airport arrest, placing her in ICE custody in another state.
How did a Johns Hopkins public health researcher with a pending asylum claim end up in a remote Louisiana ICE facility after a domestic-airport arrest?
If a visa overstay can trigger detention during domestic travel, what protections actually matter for scholars with pending immigration applications?