Maine Med Nurse Back Home in Maine After Union Colleagues Demanded Her Release

Debora Kapisha, the registered nurse detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently at Boston Logan International Airport, has been released from ICE custody and is coming home to Maine. Kapisha, a medical-surgical nurse at Maine Medical Center in Portland, is a member of Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (MSNA/NNOC).

Hundreds of union registered nurses, community allies, and elected officials rallied in Portland, Maine this week to demand Kapisha's release. They scored a major first victory by successfully blocking her transfer from Massachusetts to Louisiana, where she would have been far from her family, legal counsel, and support network.

“We were able to organize a rally for Debora within 24 hours of finding out she had been detained by ICE,” said Kelli Brennan, RN at Maine Med and co-President of MSNA. “We knew we had to take action, first to stop her from being transferred out of New England while in custody, but also to demand her release. We’re incredibly proud that nurses and the community came together in Portland to advocate for her, and now we need to figure out how to stop ICE.”

Originally from Zambia, Kapisha is legally authorized to live and work in the United States while she waits for her asylum case to be processed. On July 30, ICE detained Kapisha while she was traveling through Boston Logan International Airport. Her union has been coordinating with her attorneys for her release and Maine Med nurses are demanding their employer sponsor her permanent residency.

National Nurses United has called ICE out as an illegitimate, violent, paramilitary organization that must be dismantled. On top of people that immigrant enforcement officers have shot and killed in the streets, such as Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Maine, at least 52 people have died within the immigration detention system during Trump’s second term mainly due to withholding of adequate medical care, according to Human Rights Watch.