Ugandan minister Steven Tendo, who faced brutal torture abroad, detained by ICE in Vermont

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.

Tendo’s attorneys and local advocates have a “significant concern that he could be deported,” Lambek said Wednesday afternoon, though emphasized they were not certain. His attorneys are pursuing legal challenges in New Hampshire seeking Tendo’s release.

Tendo had a regularly scheduled check-in with ICE slated for Friday, Lambek and the union said. It was not immediately clear whether Tendo’s detention was related to the timing of that check-in.

The union, which represents staff at the University of Vermont Medical Center, said in a social media post Wednesday it was not aware that Tendo had committed any crime ahead of his detention. The Shelburne health care facility, which advocates did not identify, is Tendo’s second job, the union said.

ICE did not respond to an email Wednesday seeking information about why Tendo was detained. Tendo’s attorney, Brett Stokes, was not available to comment on Wednesday, he said in a text message.

Tendo fled his native country in 2018 and applied for asylum protection in the U.S. He made his case in the immigration court system for years, though his application was ultimately denied, meaning federal officials could remove him from the country.

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.

He has described being returned to Uganda as “a death sentence.” Tendo’s plight has drawn support in recent years from international human rights groups and dozens of members of Congress.

In a joint statement Wednesday afternoon, Vermont’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Becca Balint and Democratic U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, as well as Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, said they were “horrified” to learn about Tendo’s detention.

“Pastor Tendo fled persecution and torture in Uganda and has lived peacefully in Vermont for many years as a valued member of our community,” the state’s three-member delegation said. “People like Pastor Tendo are exactly who our asylum system is meant to protect. We join together with many Vermonters in calling on the Trump administration to ensure Pastor Tendo is allowed to return to Vermont and that he is immediately afforded full due process.”

Tendo’s asylum application was rejected in 2019 after a federal judge argued that there were inconsistencies in the story of how and why he got to the U.S. Tendo disputed that ruling, arguing the inconsistencies had nothing to do with why he needed protection. His attorneys appealed the ruling multiple times, but none of the efforts were successful.

Until Wednesday, the government had nevertheless allowed him to continue living and working freely in Vermont, though he was required to report to ICE regularly on his whereabouts. Tendo’s attorneys filed a petition in November 2025 with the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals seeking to formally prevent his removal, Lambek said.

Tendo has been in ICE custody before. After arriving at the U.S.’s southern border in Brownsville, Texas, and immediately applying for asylum, he was processed at the Port Isabel Detention Center in nearby Los Fresnos, Texas. He went on to spend more than two years at the facility. He was nearly deported while in custody there in 2020, though the agency granted him a reprieve amid pressure from advocates and members of Congress, later releasing him in early 2021 on a condition called humanitarian parole.

He faced possible deportation again in 2022 after moving to Vermont, but ICE leaders granted a request by his lawyers to hold off on deporting him for at least another year.

The day after President Donald Trump took office for a second time in 2025, Tendo was summoned unexpectedly to a check-in at an ICE office in St. Albans. He said ahead of time that he feared he’d be detained; instead, he was let go freely again.

Tendo’s most recent check-in with ICE was in October 2025, Lambek said.

On Wednesday morning, about 50 people gathered at a rally supporting Tendo outside ICE’s St. Albans facility, according to Lambek, who helped organize the demonstration. Video of the event showed people chanting, “No hate! No fear! Immigrants are welcome here!”