Anabella Gyasi and her 4-year-old son have been held at Dulles International Airport for more than a week after arriving from Ghana on May 19, a detention that has now drawn a habeas petition and renewed scrutiny of airport handling of asylum seekers. The Ghanaian mother, who is pregnant, remains in a locked room with her child while their lawyers press for release.
The reason readers are searching this now is simple: the case has moved from a border dispute to an open legal fight. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the petition on Tuesday, saying Gyasi and her son are being held by Customs and Border Protection despite long-standing rules and policies that call for pregnant women and children to be released, and despite a court settlement that requires children to be transferred out of detention within 72 hours.
Gyasi arrived with a valid tourist visa and told officers she was bringing her son to the United States for medical treatment. She first brought the boy to the country in 2024, when he was 2, to see a specialist for physical abnormalities affecting both of his hands, and was told then that he was too young for corrective surgery. Earlier this month, she arranged a pre-operation appointment at a children's hospital in Ohio and planned to travel on the same tourist visa she had used before.
After landing at Dulles, Gyasi and her son were questioned about the purpose of their trip. The petition says she disclosed fear of returning to Ghana based on persecution she and her son had faced there, and that they were then taken into custody by CBP at the airport. Since then, they have been kept in a room with a single bed, a toilet, a sink and no windows, locked inside 24 hours a day, according to the filing.
That detail matters because the detention is not just long-running; it is already affecting health. Gyasi has been taken to the hospital twice, where doctors diagnosed complications tied to high stress, gave her medication to stop bleeding and prescribed blood pressure medicine. Her lawyers say she has also worried about the health of her son and her unborn child because of constant hunger, and she was allegedly blocked from buying food for the boy. The ACLU said she told officers she would rather be deported than denied food, and she signed a deportation order out of desperation for her son’s health.
The unresolved question is why CBP has kept the pair in airport custody despite the protections their lawyers say should apply. The ACLU also says CBP does not maintain immigration detention facilities equipped to safely care for people long-term, making the airport room a poor substitute for either release or transfer. For now, Gyasi and her son remain at Dulles, and the next step rests on what the court does with the petition.
