Nika, an Iranian woman who fled persecution after protesting the Iranian regime and losing friends to the government's crackdown, was arrested by US authorities after attending what she believed was a routine Department of Homeland Security check-in in California. Despite having won a protection order from an American judge intended to prevent her return to a country where she could face persecution, she was handcuffed, shackled, and placed on a deportation flight along with 17 other migrants to the Central African Republic, a country she had never been to. Since arriving in Bangui over two months ago, she has largely stayed indoors out of fear, been stopped by local police demanding bribes, and was hospitalized after contracting malaria. Her immigration lawyer is now filing a federal lawsuit to bring her back to the US and reopen her asylum claim.