Lightroom switching Raw to jpeg

Make sure you directly import the files from your card or camera into Lightroom. If you use a camera maker's app such as Nikon's or Canon's, those always convert the image to jpeg when sending files and you can't work around that as those apps are just terribly coded. You can also directly import raw files from the built-in photoroll in iOS as well as from the files app from iCloud, dropbox, etc. That works great too but best is to directly import them from the camera or card through a card reader.

You're on an iPad? Where are the raw files, in Photos or in another app? And how are you importing them, from Lightroom or by sending them from the other app?

I am a Windows user, so I have only read this answer and don't fully understand it. Hopefully, someone else with better understanding will more fully explain it. But if you used Apple Photos or some other Apple product to import the images and then tried to import those images to Lightroom, apparently that Apple software hides the raw images and only allows JPEG images to go to Lightroom. I don't fully understand the process, but that is what I read in another discussion. Don't know if that applies in your situation or not.