Ugandan minister Steven Tendo detained by ICE in Vermont

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Steven Tendo, a Ugandan minister and nursing assistant who moved to Vermont in 2021 while seeking asylum, was detained Wednesday morning in Shelburne by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the advocacy group Migrant Justice and the union representing staff at his workplace.

Will Lambek, an organizer with Migrant Justice, said ICE agents detained Tendo outside a health care facility where he works. Lambek said it was possible that agents from one or more other federal agencies were also involved in the detention.

After the detention in Shelburne, Tendo was transported to an ICE facility in Manchester, New Hampshire, the sources said. As of Wednesday evening, Tendo was in custody at the Strafford County Jail in Dover, New Hampshire, according to ICE’s online detainee tracker.

Tendo’s attorneys and local advocates said they had “significant concern that he could be deported,” according to Lambek, though he emphasized they were not certain. Lambek said the legal team was pursuing challenges in New Hampshire seeking Tendo’s release.

The union, UVMMC Support Staff United, said in a social media post Wednesday that it was not aware that Tendo had committed any crime ahead of his detention. The union also said the Shelburne health care facility, which advocates did not identify, was Tendo’s second job.

ICE did not respond to an email Wednesday seeking information about why Tendo was detained, the report said. Tendo’s attorney, Brett Stokes, was also not available to comment Wednesday, Lambek said.

The detention came amid an active asylum case history and continuing ICE check-ins, the sources said. Tendo fled Uganda in 2018 and applied for asylum in the United States; a federal judge rejected his application in 2019 after citing inconsistencies in parts of his account, according to the report. The report said Tendo disputed that ruling, his attorneys appealed multiple times, and none of the efforts were successful.

Before Wednesday, the federal government had allowed Tendo to continue living and working in Vermont, but required him to report to ICE regularly on his whereabouts. Lambek said Tendo had a regularly scheduled check-in with ICE slated for Friday, though it was not immediately clear whether Wednesday’s detention was tied to that timing. Lambek also said Tendo’s attorneys filed a petition in November 2025 with the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals seeking to formally prevent his removal.

Tendo and his supporters have described severe mistreatment in Uganda, according to U.S. federal court records cited in the report and Tendo’s past accounts. The report said Tendo has described being tortured by government forces after they viewed an advocacy organization he founded as a political threat, including accounts of being held in a pit with a live python and being hung from a board with a brick tied to his genitals, as well as losing two fingers from his left hand, which he said were cut off with wire cutters.

A joint statement Wednesday afternoon from Vermont’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Becca Balint and Democratic U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, along with Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, said they were “horrified” to learn about Tendo’s detention. The statement said: “Pastor Tendo fled persecution and torture in Uganda and has lived peacefully in Vermont for many years as a valued member of our community,” adding: “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.”

The report also said Tendo has been in ICE custody before, including after his arrival at the U.S. southern border in Brownsville, Texas, where he applied for asylum and was processed at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos. It said he spent more than two years there and was nearly deported in 2020 before being released in early 2021 on humanitarian parole.

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