The life of a Congolese asylum seeker who was granted permission to remain in the United States is in “grave danger” after ICE secretly transported her to an unknown African nation, while the woman’s husband — a feared local politician who allegedly shot her father as she watched — continues to hunt her across continents, according to a tranche of federal documents reviewed. The Independent.
In addition to fearing for her own safety, “Jane Doe,” as she is referred to in legal filings, “hopes for the safety of her children, whose whereabouts are unknown to her because their father, her husband, is trying to kill them and so they are in hiding, even for her,” states an emergency motion filed by Louisiana attorneys. “She’s hoping for the safety of her brother, who was kidnapped in Mexico by a cartel and hasn’t been seen since.”
At age 14, “Jane Doe” — a devout Christian and former hairdresser from the Democratic Republic of Congo — was forced to become the African politician’s sixth wife to honor a family debt, according to the motion. Over the next decade, Doe was physically and sexually abused by her husband and two of his sons, having four children while she was “held hostage,” the motion says, which seeks Doe’s immediate return to the US.
In late 2024, Doe managed to escape to her parents’ home, the motion continues. But Doe’s politician husband quickly found her, brutalized her and her brother, ordered his guards to execute her father in front of her and burned the family home to the ground, the motion said. When Doe went to the police, they said her only option was to leave the country because “her abuser was too powerful and … they couldn’t protect her,” according to the motion.
“Ms. Doe hid and ran [Democratic Republic of Congo] with the help of her brother and his employer, who secretly obtained travel documents and plane tickets to Brazil,” the document states. Doe’s abuser continued to follow her abroad. An hour after arriving in Brazil, Ms. Doe received a WhatsApp message from her abuser saying he knew she was in Brazil and that he had “eyes everywhere.” He threatened to kill her.”
Family, friends and lawyers of a ‘Jane Doe’ say they have no idea where she is after being deported – and that ICE won’t tell them – prompting fears that she is being sent to an African nation where her life could be in danger (Getty Images)
Terrified, Doe made her way through 12 different countries — even braving the famous Darién Gap on foot — to reach the United States, where, the motion explains, “she believed human rights were respected.” Doe is said to have arrived at the US-Mexico border on January 2, 2025 and immediately applied for asylum. She was sent to the Richwood Correctional Center in Monroe, Louisiana, as her case was processed, and last June she was allowed to remain in the US under a “withholding of removal” decision that barred her deportation to DR Congo.
However, that all changed on February 15, 2026, when ICE decided to send her elsewhere.
Doe’s attorneys say they were never contacted by authorities about their client’s sudden removal and “don’t even know where [ICE] disappeared [her] until yesterday in the dark of night.” Doe was placed on a deportation flight bound for Senegal, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana and Nigeria, with no other information provided, the affidavit said, adding: “Ms. Doe has no connections, resources, money or way to contact anyone in the world.”
The motion claims that Doe’s “unlawful removal means her life is in grave danger.”
Doe, according to an affidavit filed by one of her attorneys, is “an extraordinary woman.”
“She’s been through extensive trauma, and despite that, she smiles on video calls with me and tells me how she’s learning to make bracelets in ICE custody,” it said. “She reads her Bible and conducts Bible studies among other women in her detention center. She finds a way to continue to hold on to hope… She hopes that her future education will allow her to study medicine, work as a nurse, and one day run an orphanage. She hopes to see the outside of the detention center where she lived in the United States of America Monday: January to 201325.”
Jane Doe fears her ‘husband’, whom she was forced to marry to pay off a family debt, will kill her if she is forced to return to DR Congo – or have to live anywhere outside the US, according to court records (AFP via Getty Images)
The affidavit praises Doe for fighting the June 2025 removal order, which the motion explains is “asylum-like in that she proved that she was more likely than not to be persecuted for a protected reason if she were moved to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and that the government there was unable or unwilling to protect her.”
Last summer, ICE instructed officials that immigrants can be deported from the United States to countries other than their own with as little as six hours’ notice — or no notice at all.
That memo from ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons followed a Supreme Court decision that opened the door for ICE to send deportees to countries where they have no citizenship, family or other ties.
Since then, ICE has spent more than $40 million and fought several legal battles to move them to distant nations where deportees have no connection, including several countries in Africa: Eswatini, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda and South Sudan, among others.
In a June 2025 letter to authorities filed as evidence in court, another lawyer representing Doe wrote that he was told ICE was considering Canada and Spain as possible third countries to deport her to. However, her husband has family in both places and could easily find her there, the letter said. Guatemala, a third possibility proposed by ICE, would be just as dangerous for Doe, who also does not speak Spanish, according to a later letter.
Still, immigration authorities denied Doe his right to a reasonable apprehension interview about any potential third country, which Monday’s motion calls an “extraordinary and unlawful measure.”
“In our Constitution, this cannot stand,” the motion argues.
Jane Doe was deported by ICE in the middle of the night with no prior warning provided to her lawyers, according to court records (AFP via Getty Images)
For nearly nine months, ICE refused to communicate with Doe’s attorneys at all, according to the motion.
“The defendants communicate – if at all – only with [Doe]: a high school graduate, with no legal training, who is a native French speaker and knows only limited English,” it claims. “… This does not provide Ms. Doe with meaningful notice or an opportunity to respond. By removing counsel from the equation and refusing to engage with her attorneys, the defendants have engaged in heinous conduct in violation of Ms. Doe’s rights.”
At 11:00 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, Doe’s legal team was notified by a family member that Doe had been told she “had been ‘moved,'” the motion states. “It appears that she had no information or knowledge as to whether this ‘move’ was a transfer to another facility or a move to a third country.”
By 10 a.m. Sunday, Doe had disappeared from ICE’s online detainer locator, according to the motion. Doe’s attorneys are said to have made at least 20 phone calls to eight different ICE officials, field offices and detention centers, but that no one answered.
Finally, around 1 p.m., an ICE officer answered the phone and said Doe had been transported from the U.S. on a 4 a.m. flight carrying deportees to five African countries, but “could not identify which … her destination was,” the motion said. The officer referred the attorneys to a pair of superiors, who also did not respond to their questions, according to the motion.
Doe’s lawyers argue that the US government violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process, as well as a section of federal law that prohibits “arbitrary or capricious” behavior by government agencies.
They are asking U.S. officials to facilitate Doe’s return to the U.S. “without incident,” release her upon entry, and reimburse her for any costs incurred. Late Tuesday, a judge denied Doe’s motion and ordered her attorneys to resubmit the motion with additional details.
Doe’s attorneys declined to comment on the filing. An ICE spokesman did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
With reporting by Alex Woodward