Rodney Taylor, the husband, father, and double-amputee who has been held by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in Stewart Detention Center since January 2025, may be deported any day now, according to his wife, Mildred Danis-Taylor.
Immigration advocates who work with Danis-Taylor on the “Free Rodney Taylor” campaign learned last week that ICE had obtained travel documents from Liberia, Taylor’s country of birth.
“When Rodney received an alert from his deportation officer of the travel document, the officer even jeered saying … ‘They’ve just been waiting for the green light all along to put him on the next flight,’” Danis-Taylor said at an emergency organizing meeting Friday.
Taylor, 47, was born with severe disabilities and came to the United States with his mother at 2 years old on a medical visa organized by Shriners Children’s Hospital. Before his arrest, he worked as a barber in Gwinnett County under a valid work permit and was in the process of obtaining his green card.
He was detained by ICE and kept in custody because of a felony burglary charge that he pled guilty to as a teenager. He was pardoned by the state of Georgia in 2010.
“While in detention, Rodney has deteriorated significantly. He has lost a lot of weight,” Danis-Taylor said.
In addition to what she described to Capital B Atlanta in January as inadequate medical care, Danis-Taylor said her husband has not had access to accommodations despite his profound disabilities.
“There are times he cannot take a shower,” Danis-Taylor said. “He can’t do it with the general population; he has to remove his prosthetics and then he crawls across floors covered with mold and feces to shower.”
Earlier this month, she traveled to Washington for a congressional hearing where U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath of Georgia questioned then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem about Taylor’s situation. Noem said she would look into his case, but she was fired by President Donald Trump the next day.
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to Capital B Atlanta’s request for comment.
Uchechukwu Onwa, the national civic engagement coordinator with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration told reporters and organizers that Taylor’s attorneys had been preparing to submit legal briefs to appeal his immigration case before last week.
“But now that ICE has travel documents for him, there are concerns that ICE would not wait to deport him, or that they will deport him right after his attorney submit[s] his legal brief,” Onwa said.
Danis-Taylor said she prays Taylor won’t be deported soon. He does not have the same connections or support network in Liberia that he has built after decades in the United States. His mother remains in the U.S. and since his father’s death, Taylor’s only remaining relatives in Liberia are siblings that he doesn’t know.
“My husband is not a number, he’s not a case file. He’s a father, he’s a husband. He’s a beloved barber [in] our community,” she said. “He’s a man who has spent his life serving others, but today, Rodney is being forced to endure conditions that are breaking his body and his spirit.”
Read More
- ‘My Husband Crawls to Shower’: Rodney Taylor’s Wife on His ‘Horrific’ ICE Detention
- Atlanta Lawyers Work to Get Unlawfully Deported Black Immigrants Returned to the U.S.
- What to Do If You’re Detained or Questioned by ICE in Atlanta
- Black Immigrants in Atlanta Mobilize Amid Rising Deportation Threats
