ICE’s Refusal to #FreePastorSteven Symbolizes How Little #BlackLivesMatter in Trump’s America

Captive in an invisible, Orwellian underworld, Steven is just one innocent man — among tens of thousands — being tortured by US Immigration & Customs Enforcement

“I am not a criminal. I am not a rule-breaker. I am a pastor, for crying out loud!” That’s Pastor Steven, a 36-year-old human- and voting-rights advocate who has been wasting away in an ICE detention center since requesting asylum in the United States in December 2018.

As long as his pastoral work remained focused on church teachings and community education, life in Uganda was good for Pastor Steven. But when he rose his voice to speak out against the reality of diminishing human rights in Uganda, he landed on the wrong side of President Yoweri Museveni.

Museveni became president of Uganda back in 1986, after leading popular rebellions to topple the notoriously repressive regime of Idi Amin, then challenge that of Milton Obote. Considered the savior of Uganda and, for a long time, much loved by his people, Museveni’s power eventually corrupted him absolutely. In another 2016 presidential election infamously marred by widespread reports of fraud, Museveni grabbed his country’s top job for a fifth term within an atmosphere of renewed repression reminiscent of the regimes he once fought so hard to resist.

As the world marked International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2018, activists called attention to the uptick in arrests, detainment, harassment, and torture of Ugandan journalists, celebrities, clergy, and citizens critical of Museveni and his family. Amnesty International concurred: its 2017–2018 report signaled that rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly were being severely restricted in Uganda.

Pastor Steven was one of its targets.

Denied his Basic Human Rights at Home

At first, it was garden-variety harassment. Then surveillance and intimidation evolved into threats. When that didn’t stop Pastor Steven from educating people about their basic human rights, the repression escalated to outright persecution.

Pastor Steven was arrested, detained, and tortured on several occasions. In one torture session, two of Steven’s fingers were cut off. His legs were burned with melted plastic. He sustained beatings, which left him scarred for life.

Finally, Pastor Steven fled.

“I ran out of my country to save my life,” says the Pastor, proving a credible fear of persecution if deported back Uganda. That’s all that’s needed to pursue an asylum claim in the US.

Steven is, indeed, a hunted man. His family and friends are routinely attacked on suspicion that they are hiding Pastor Steven. And Ugandan officials have confirmed: if returned to the country, he will not make it out of the airport alive.

Denied his International Human Right to Asylum in the US

Pastor Steven arrived at a legal US Port of Entry in Brownsville, Texas in December 2018, just as International Human Rights activists were calling Uganda out for its renewed brutality and oppression. He lawfully exercised his internationally recognized human right, under Article 14 of the United Declaration of Human Rights, to seek asylum in the United States.

Now this man, who fled documented persecution and is innocent of any real crime, is locked up in a US ICE detention center. He is being threatened with deportation, even though his asylum case is on appeal. What’s more, he suffers from failing health, making him a sitting duck for COVID-19, which is now ripping through US jails.

Steven’s case proves that Trump & Co’s attacks on the immigration process have eroded the right to asylum in the US. Not only can Steven establish a credible fear of persecution — and certain death — if returned to Uganda, he also arrived with an offer of full sponsorship, by a Unitarian Church community in Montana. He should have been released to this sponsor within days — that’s how the asylum process works. But Steven was inexplicably denied parole, detained, and transferred in shackles to the ICE detention Center in Port Isabel, Texas, over a year and a half ago.

He is at the Port Isabel Detention Center (PIDC) still.

Denied his Right to a Vulnerability Exception

Then there’s the question of his health. Steven has suffered from diabetes all his life, which he was able to control through medication, diet, and exercise. Once they detained him, ICE paid lip-service to his condition.

“He was denied a proper diabetic diet, his blood sugars were only checked every three months, and his medications were altered to half his necessary daily dosage,” states immigration attorney Cathy Potter. “ Now, Steven’s glucose readings have reached such dangerous levels, he is going blind.” He is plagued by painful, recurring boils all over his body, including his genitals. He reports numbness and tingling sensations he’s never felt before. He experiences constant exhaustion and is losing weight.

For the duration of his incarceration, Steven’s meals have been served to him on a different colored plate, indicating a special diet. But in reality, he is given the same moldy-bologna-on-frozen-white-bread sandwich as all other inmates, with chips or a cookie on the side. Not a diabetic’s diet.

Steven’s immune system is now completely compromised. His deteriorating medical condition leaves him susceptible to things as innocuous as the common cold. Should he contract COVID-19, Steven doesn’t stand a chance.

Denied his Right to Humanitarian Parole in the US

Since April 2020, detainees and activists alike have decried the lack of adequate medical protections at the PIDC. On June 12, there were 26 confirmed cases and 23 “under isolation or observation,” validating what detainees have been warning for weeks: PIDC is experiencing an outbreak of the deadly virus.

Many believe that in a detention center of 1500 men, that number is likely low. ICE isn’t saying, but we do know this:

Where men are held 70 to a dorm and sleep in bunk beds set a mere 3-feet apart, social distancing is impossible.

The PIDC facility is already well-known for its notoriously substandard hygienic and health standards, and detainees in all ICE facilities are being denied adequate cleaning supplies, despite CDC recommendations.

Only detainees with commissary funds are able to purchase soap and hand sanitizer — and at inflated prices.

Even after a PIDC staff member was confirmed to have the virus on March 31, 2020, guards continued to pass in and out of and through the facility, serving food without wearing masks or gloves. Detainees have only recently been given masks.

The 6, 70-man dormitories at PIDC include only a couple of toilets each. They stand open, allowing bacteria to spread freely, including at mealtimes. They often clog and are cleaned only twice daily — on a good day.

Detainees eat their meals on their beds.

Inmates are tested for the virus only when they show clear symptoms, at which point it’s too late. When one dorm-member is diagnosed, the entire dorm is quarantined. Eight dorms are said to be off-limits at the current time.

Hunger strikes have twice erupted at PIDC in the past two months. The last one included 120 detainees. They were protesting their ongoing detention in the midst of a life-threatening pandemic. ICE maintains that the agency “fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference,” yet detainees report that strikers have been punished with solitary confinement. Stress levels among detainees are high.

More recently, some PIDC guards have failed to report to work, fearing an outbreak of COVID-19 will wipe out everyone within the institution. But Steven and his fellow inmates do not have that option. And while his attorneys work around the clock to try to secure Steven’s release, here is perhaps the greatest injustice of all:

ICE has full discretion to release all those who are innocent of any real crime and do not pose a flight risk.

The United States District Court in Brownsville, Texas has not only denied a Steven Humanitarian Parole, but it has also issued orders for his deportation — a certain death sentence for Steven — and highly illegal given his case is still pending.

Meanwhile, time is running out to #FreePastorSteven: He reports flu-like symptoms and the loss of taste and smell.

The Parallel Pandemic in Trump’s America: Torture by Racism

“ICE has released over 900 individuals after evaluating their immigration history, criminal record, potential threat to public safety, flight risk, and national security concerns,” according to agency reports.

Why not #FreePastorSteven?

Texas attorneys have long observed that despite impeccable records and clear paths to sponsorship, single African men are more harshly discriminated against at PIDC. Black African inmates suffer, on average, longer detention terms, discrimination in job assignments, withholding of library privileges, and other injustices that increase the burden of living behind bars as an innocent man. Though PIDC has stepped up the release of a number of detainees in light of the humanitarian crisis the coronavirus pandemic presents, only two Africans have, to date, been released.

This same racial discrimination may well be killing innocent Africans in ICE detention right now.

It is certainly killing Steven, who should never have been detained and whose continued incarceration under elevated life-threatening conditions clearly constitutes torture by cruel and degrading treatment.

If deported, Steven will be deprived of his right to life.

“The Trump administration’s policies of abusing and endangering refugees must come to an end,” states Lisa Brodyaga, immigration attorney, Harlingen, Texas.

“We ask that Steven be released forthwith to his sponsor,” states Jennifer Harbury, immigration attorney, Weslaco, Texas, and that “the Office of the Inspector General investigate and remedy the racial bias against African asylum seekers in PIDC release practices.”

Sarah Towle is an educator, historian, human rights scholar, and the author of THE FIRST SOLUTION: Tales of Humanity and Heroism from the US Border Crisis, rolling out on Medium as fast as she can write it because the issue is Just. That. Urgent. yet rendered invisible by the COVID-19 and US Constitutional crises. Her goal is to get the word out before November 2020, because everyone must know.