WATCH: Sister Pat Fox's supporters rally at Immigration office

MANILA, Philippines — Supporters of Sister Patricia Fox, an Australian lay missionary, trooped to the Bureau of Immigration office in Intramuros, Manila on Wednesday to protest an order for her to leave the country. 

Early on Wednesday, the Immigration bureau said that it is cancelling the missionary visa of Sister Patricia Fox because, it said, she violated the bureau’s rules for foreigners holding visas.

The protesters bore posters that say: "Hands off human rights defenders."

Protesters also stormed the Immigration’s main office in Intramuros when Fox was detained by Immigration agents on April 16.

The bureau said then that their agents “invited” Fox to their office to verify intelligence reports that she took part in partisan political activities.

Human rights and land reform advocates slammed the detention of Fox and said that the Australian nun spent the past 27 years doing humanitarian work.

President Rodrigo Duterte has admitted to ordering the investigation into Fox for her supposedly disorderly conduct in the country.

Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, one of the groups that alerted media to Fox's apprehension by the BI, believes her detention and subsequent ejection from the country is reprisal for her joining a fact-finding mission on allegations of harassment and rights violations in Mindanao.