Updated at 7:15 p.m.
The federal immigration authorities that detained an Ugandan pastor outside his workplace in Shelburne on Wednesday are now denying him the medication needed to treat his Type 2 diabetes, according to his lawyer.
Steven Tendo, an asylum seeker who moved to Vermont in 2021, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and served with a final order of removal this week. He’s since been incarcerated at Strafford County Corrections in Dover, New Hampshire.
Chris Worth, who’s representing Tendo, told Vermont Public Friday evening that Tendo has yet to receive the medication, called Metformin, that he takes to manage his diabetes.
“The government has been notified continuously of this condition,” said Worth, a visiting professor at the Vermont Law School’s Center for Justice Reform Clinic. “And despite numerous communications and emails and calls since his detention, nothing has happened.”
Representatives from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ office said they had also contacted Strafford County Corrections Friday to intervene on Tendo’s behalf.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure his safety, get him the medications he needs and return him safely home to Vermont,” Sanders said in a written statement.
ICE didn’t immediately respond to a media inquiry Friday evening. A person at Strafford County Corrections said Superintendent Chris Brackett was the only person authorized to speak and that he wouldn’t be available until Monday.
Tendo is a licensed nursing assistant at the University of Vermont Medical Center whose detention has drawn widespread condemnation, including from Vermont’s faith and medical communities. In a written statement Wednesday, the medical center called for Tendo’s “immediate release” and said his detention was part of a nationwide immigration crackdown that’s “causing real harm in our communities and our health care system.”
All three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation said they were “horrified” by Tendo’s detention, which came two days before a regularly scheduled check-in with ICE.
“Pastor Tendo fled persecution and torture in Uganda and has lived peacefully in Vermont for many years as a valued member of our community,” Sens. Sanders and Peter Welch and Rep. Becca Balint said in a joint written statement. “People like Pastor Tendo are exactly who our asylum system is meant to protect.”
Tendo said in his asylum petition that he was imprisoned and tortured by Ugandan authorities for his efforts to teach young people about their political rights. He’s said he’ll face “certain death if I were to return home.”
The federal government denied Tendo’s asylum case in 2019; according to a written statement from ICE on Friday afternoon, a Department of Justice Immigration judge ordered Tendo’s removal in 2019.
“He has fully availed himself of his due process and remains in ICE custody pending his removal back to Uganda,” an ICE spokesperson said in the statement.
Tendo’s quest to win permanent legal status, however, gained momentum in 2020 after 40 members of Congress, including then-Rep. Peter Welch, urged the Department of Homeland Security to grant his appeal.
“There is reason to believe that Pastor Steven Tendo will be tortured and killed as soon as he arrives in Uganda,” the members of Congress wrote. “Removing Pastor Steven under these circumstances would constitute a breach of U.S. obligations under both U.S. domestic asylum law.”
Tendo’s lawyers have filed an emergency petition to secure his release. Hearings in the case are scheduled in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
Worth said Tendo was previously denied critical medical treatment by ICE during his more than two-year detention in Texas between 2018 and 2020. According to a civil lawsuit Tendo filed against the Department of Homeland Security, Tendo developed multiple cataracts as a result of lack of access to his diabetes medication. That case is still pending.
Worth, who’s been speaking to Tendo regularly by phone, said his client is “not good.”
“He’s not getting the medical treatment he requires. He’s not getting diabetic specific diet, which he should receive,” Worth said. “And he’s a survivor of torture in Uganda, so all of this experience brings him back to a very dark place.”
