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Ugandan minister Steven Tendo, who faced brutal torture abroad, detained by ICE
https://vtdigger.org/2026/02/04/ugandan-asylum-seeker-steven-tendo-detained-by-ice/Shaun Robinson
Tendo, who fled his native country to seek asylum and has lived in Vermont since 2021, was detained outside a health care facility in Shelburne where he works, advocates said.
Steven Tendo, a Ugandan minister and nursing assistant who moved to Vermont in 2021 while seeking asylum, was detained in Shelburne on Wednesday morning by federal immigration agents, according to the union he's a part of and the advocacy group Migrant Justice.
Tendo was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside a health care facility where he works, said Will Lambek, an organizer with Migrant Justice, and Tendo's union, UVMMC Support Staff United. It's possible that agents from one or more other federal agencies were involved in Tendo's detention as well, Lambek said.
After being detained in Shelburne, Tendo was transported to an ICE facility in Manchester, New Hampshire. As of Wednesday evening, he was in custody at the Strafford County Jail in Dover, New Hampshire, according to ICE's online detainee tracker. That's one of a handful of prisons ICE uses to hold detainees in New England.
T . . .
In Uganda, Tendo was brutally tortured, and members of his family were killed, because government forces there viewed an advocacy organization he founded as a political threat, according to U.S. federal court records and Tendo's own past accounts.
At one point, Tendo has said, guards put him in a pit with a live python that whipped his body with its tail, leaving him badly bruised. Officers hung him from a board with a brick tied to his genitals, he has said, leaving him there until he bled. He is missing two fingers from his left hand that he's said were cut off using wire cutters.
. . .
Tendo was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement outside a health care facility where he works, said Will Lambek, an organizer with Migrant Justice, and Tendo's union, UVMMC Support Staff United. It's possible that agents from one or more other federal agencies were involved in Tendo's detention as well, Lambek said.
After being detained in Shelburne, Tendo was transported to an ICE facility in Manchester, New Hampshire. As of Wednesday evening, he was in custody at the Strafford County Jail in Dover, New Hampshire, according to ICE's online detainee tracker. That's one of a handful of prisons ICE uses to hold detainees in New England.
T . . .
In Uganda, Tendo was brutally tortured, and members of his family were killed, because government forces there viewed an advocacy organization he founded as a political threat, according to U.S. federal court records and Tendo's own past accounts.
At one point, Tendo has said, guards put him in a pit with a live python that whipped his body with its tail, leaving him badly bruised. Officers hung him from a board with a brick tied to his genitals, he has said, leaving him there until he bled. He is missing two fingers from his left hand that he's said were cut off using wire cutters.
. . .