Rodney Taylor, 46, a double amputee, was arrested by ICE agents on January 15 at his home in Loganville, Georgia.
LOGANVILLE, Georgia – A Liberian-born man detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Georgia was placed in solitary confinement after protesting a flooded cell that he said posed a serious threat to his electronic prosthetic legs.
By Gerald C. Koinyeneh, [email protected]
Rodney Taylor, 46, a double amputee, was arrested by ICE agents on January 15 at his home in Loganville, Georgia. He has been in detention at the Stewart Detention Center ever since, awaiting an immigration judge’s decision on whether he will be deported to Liberia or allowed to remain in the United States.
Taylor, who was brought to the U.S. by his mother at the age of two for medical treatment, says a past legal issue may now cost him everything. His detention stems from a burglary conviction at age 16—a conviction he believed had been resolved when the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles granted him a pardon in 2010.
“I thought I had a pardon from the state. It was all behind me in the past. They brought it up, and it was shocking to me,” Taylor said from detention.
According to The Guardian, Taylor recently spent three days in what CoreCivic—the private prison company operating Stewart—calls a “restrictive housing unit” after refusing to enter his cell, which was flooded with an inch of water. The leak posed a serious danger to his battery-powered, microprocessor-controlled prosthetic legs, which cannot get wet.
His fiancée, Mildred Pierre, vividly recalled the moment ICE agents arrested him:
“There was a truck that blocked me from behind, two cars pulled up in front, guns drawn. ‘Get out of the car! Get out of the car!’ My kids were in the back crying. It was like a scene from a movie,” she said.
Pierre described the ordeal of the past six months as a nightmare.
“Rodney is permanently disabled. He is a double amputee. He needs to come home,” she said.
Taylor, a father of seven through a blended family, had been living what many would call the American Dream. A well-known barber in Gwinnett County, he worked legally on a permit and maintained a stable family life.
But the detention has taken a toll on his health and mental well-being. His attorney, Sarah Owings, says ICE has discretion to release Taylor but has chosen not to. She emphasized that although Taylor has a conviction, it was pardoned long ago.
“Mr. Taylor has a conviction—that’s true—but it was pardoned. He served no jail time and was sentenced only to probation and time served. He should not be subject to this kind of treatment,” Owings said.
ICE has told FOX 5 News that Taylor’s pardon was not a “full” pardon, making him ineligible for legal residency under current immigration guidelines.
Pierre fears that deportation could be a death sentence.
“He will die if he is deported,” she said, pointing to the lack of advanced medical facilities in Liberia to manage Taylor’s condition and prosthetic needs.
Taylor’s deportation hearing is scheduled for August, a decision that will determine whether he returns to Liberia—a country he hasn’t seen since infancy—or remains in the only home he’s known for over four decades.
