Ugandan refugee Steven Tendo, center top, hugs Dian Kahn, a member of the Central Vermont Refugee Action Network, outside a federal immigration office in 2022.Lisa Rathke/Associated Press
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Last December, Steven Tendo stood on the steps of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington, Vermont, speaking to a crowd holding a candlelight vigil for immigrant justice.
“I believe that when we gather like this,” said Tendo, an ordained minister and asylum seeker from Uganda who fled torture and political persecution, “we are not only raising our voices, we are building a sanctuary in the public square—a sanctuary where immigrants can feel seen, heard and valued, a sanctuary where policies are challenged, but more importantly, where hearts are changed.”
Tendo thanked the community members who have been accompanying him to his regular check-in appointments with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in St. Albans. “I hold you dear in my heart when I walk out of my house to go to work at the hospital, not knowing whether I’ll be back or not,” he said.
Tendo’s words proved prescient. On Wednesday morning, he was arrested by immigration officers outside a Shelburne medical facility where he works as a licensed nursing assistant, just two days before a scheduled routine appointment with the agency.
“Everything seemed okay,” Tendo told me during a phone call on Sunday night from the Strafford County jail in Dover where he’s being detained. “And to my dismay, they came to my place of work and did all that kind of chaos there, shouting and yelling. The patients were like, ‘What’s going on?’ Everyone was scared.” Tendo said the officers “brutally” arrested him at gunpoint while his car was in motion and handcuffed his hands behind his back. “It was so scary,” he said. “I never expected that to happen in the United States. It happens in Uganda, but not here.”
“I followed the rules. I’ve done great in the community. I’ve never abused any of the conditions of the stay or of my supervision…I’m so scared, I cannot go back [to Uganda].”
Tendo came to the United States in 2018 seeking political asylum after becoming a target of the Ugandan government for his organization’s civic education and voter registration work. On one occasion, he was abducted by armed men and says he was taken to a secret facility where he was interrogated, beaten, and tortured. Some of his fingers were cut off. Another time, Tendo says he was placed in an underground room for hours with a python snake.
After fleeing to the United States, Tendo spent two years at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas. Despite ample evidence of the harm Tendo endured in his home country and the risk to his life if he were sent back to Uganda, an immigration judge rejected his asylum claim in 2019, citing inconsistencies in his account. Tendo’s lawyers appealed the judge’s decision without success. His case drew attention and support from Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, as well as US lawmakers. In 2021, Tendo was released from detention and settled in Vermont as he continued to fight his case.
Tendo has an outstanding order of removal. But, until now, he has benefited from ICE’s discretion to temporarily halt efforts to remove him through what’s called a stay of removal. During the Biden administration, Tendo said he only had to check in once a year. After President Donald Trump returned to power, the appointments became more regular, first every six months and then every three months.
“Under the new administration they were less willing to continue agreements like that,” said Brett Stokes, an assistant professor of law and director of the Vermont Law and Graduate School’s Center for Justice Reform Clinic who works on Tendo’s case. The day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration for a second term, Tendo received a letter instructing him to report to ICE sooner than expected, which raised fears of deportation.
A rally outside the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on July 21, 2025. The community members gathered to support Steven Tendo.Boston Globe/Getty
At the time of his arrest on February 4, Tendo said his legal team had already communicated to the agency that they would be filing a new stay of removal request soon. “I’m so sad because I tried to do everything by the book,” he told me. “I followed the rules. I’ve done great in the community. I’ve never abused any of the conditions of the stay or of my supervision.” He added: “I’m so scared, I cannot go back.”
Tendo’s lawyers are also trying to reopen his case based on changed circumstances in Uganda and the increased harm he might face if deported due to his opposition to the ruling government. In the past, Stokes said, that might have been enough to dissuade ICE from taking a negative action against somebody—but not anymore. Stokes said the legal team was not informed of any changes to Tendo’s order of supervision that required him to report to the agency on a regular basis or of ICE’s intention to enact a removal order against him. They have filed a habeas petition seeking his release from detention and an emergency motion to stop his transfer.
“I think the most disturbing aspect of all of this is the fact that he had an ICE check-in scheduled for Friday and, all things being equal, was not necessarily expecting it to go differently than prior check-ins since his case has stayed the same,” Stokes said.
Tendo told me that while in custody ICE initially refused to give him his medication for diabetes for three days. “I never thought I would ever [be here] again,” he said. “I just have to be strong and pray that it will end soon. I don’t want to die here.” Chris Worth, one of Tendo’s lawyers, told a local news outlet that the government hadn’t acted on emails and calls about his client’s health condition. Tendo previously filed a civil complaint against the US government alleging “negligence, battery, assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress” during his time in immigration detention.
“People like Pastor Tendo are exactly who our asylum system is meant to protect,” Democrat Sens. Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch and Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont said in a statement. Vermont AFL-CIO, the union Tendo is a member of, called his arrest “unnecessary, disruptive, and harmful to both workers and the communities that rely on them.” A crowdfunding campaign to help supplement Tendo’s income while in detention has raised more than $27,000, and some community members have been keeping watch outside the Strafford County jail.
“It’s just an unprecedented level of surveillance, harassment, and detentions, and we expect that to continue to increase.”
“It certainly seems quite plausible that ICE decided to detain him at his workplace, rather than at the check-in, to try to minimize the chance of community response,” said Will Lambek with the Migrant Justice organization. He estimated that about 50 people had shown up to an emergency rally on Wednesday to protest Tendo’s arrest, which coincided with the release of a Somali taxi driver who had been detained in January.
“That was a really jubilant moment that happened right on the heels of this very difficult moment of Steven’s detention,” Lambek said. “These two cases are part of this pattern of increasing enforcement from ICE and border patrol in Vermont. We’ve seen at least a tenfold increase in detentions in the state in 2025 compared to 2024. It’s just an unprecedented level of surveillance, harassment, and detentions, and we expect that to continue to increase.”
Tendo has called Vermont home for the past five years. He works as a licensed nursing assistant with the University of Vermont Medical Center and at an assisted living facility. He was also attending Vermont State University for his nursing degree.
“I don’t believe that what happened with Pastor Steven had anything to do with him as a person,” said Melissa Battah, executive director of the Vermont Interfaith Action. “I really believe that it was meant to instill fear into the immigrant community in Vermont…If the current administration thinks that they are just going to take this lying down, they have another thing coming for them. And if they think that the rest of the Vermonters that live here are going to allow our neighbors to disappear without us saying anything, they have another thing coming for them.”
Marybeth Redmond, an interfaith minister who spoke with Tendo on Wednesday, said he has left a deep imprint on the community. “He’s just a very deeply caring man,” she said. “He’s lived such a challenged life and yet to have the hopefulness and resilience that he has is nothing short of miraculous. I think most people would have crumbled under the things that he has had to navigate.”
Prior to Tendo’s unexpected arrest, Redmond had organized a group to show up at the Friday check-in outside the local ICE field office in his support. The plan was to send him in for the appointment with a blessing. Instead, a vigil took place without him. Redmond said somewhere between 150 and 175 people joined. “Steven, you’re not alone,” Tendo’s supporters chanted.
