United States immigration officers have taken a Nigerian woman into custody after she was convicted in Maryland of first degree assault and abuse of a vulnerable adult, the Department of Homeland Security said on Friday.
Obiageriaku Jane Iheanacho was named among several people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement whom officials described as dangerous foreign offenders living in the country illegally. The department said officers also detained people convicted of murder, sexual assault and robbery.
Court records in Baltimore show Iheanacho pleaded guilty in September 2023 to first degree assault and first degree abuse of a vulnerable adult. She had been working as a geriatric nursing assistant at Autumn Lake Health Care in the city when, on 15 May 2022, she was captured on surveillance video pushing Ellsworth Johnson Bey, a dementia patient aged 75.
Prosecutors said she struck him and forced him against a wall. He fell and suffered a fractured left hip. He was treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital and later returned to the facility, but he did not recover enough to leave his bed. He developed pneumonia and blood clots linked to inactivity and was later diagnosed with Covid 19. He died in hospital on 5 September 2022. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by blunt force trauma.
Iheanacho was charged in January 2023 with second degree murder, first degree assault and abuse of a vulnerable adult. The murder count was dropped under a plea agreement. Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Schiffer imposed a twenty five year sentence and suspended all but seven years. Upon release she was placed on five years of supervised probation and barred from caring for vulnerable adults. Local reporting at the time noted that she faced possible removal from the United States after serving her sentence.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said: “Yesterday, the brave men and women of ICE arrested murderers, sexual predators, robbers, and other dangerous illegal aliens. Despite the dangerous and ugly rhetoric from sanctuary politicians that have resulted in a 1,600% increase in assaults against them, ICE will never stop enforcing the law, deporting illegal aliens, and protecting the American people.”
The department listed other arrests announced with Iheanacho’s. They included Jesus Ceja Barajas of Mexico, convicted of murder in Salinas, California; Zam Muan Lian of Burma, convicted of three counts of sexual assault in Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Adony De La Cruz Cruz of the Dominican Republic, convicted of robbery in New York; and Roberto Bejarano Cruz of Mexico, convicted of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine in Austin, Texas.
On the claimed rise in attacks on officers, the department said there were 647 assaults against ICE from 20 January 2025 to 20 September 2026, compared with 37 from 20 January 2021 to 20 September 2022. It put that change at more than 1,600 per cent and blamed what it called hostile rhetoric from politicians in sanctuary jurisdictions. Independent verification of those figures and of the comparison periods was not provided in the announcement.
Iheanacho lived in the Baltimore area at the time of the original police investigation. United States officials now describe her as a Nigerian national present in the country illegally. Immigration custody is separate from the state criminal case. Removal proceedings, if pursued, would be decided in the immigration courts.
By A.Ikechukwu
