Ugandan minister, health care worker and asylum-seeker Steven Tendo is expected to return home to Vermont on Friday after being detained for 16 days, his lawyer said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took Tendo, 41, into custody on Feb. 4 outside the Shelburne health care facility where he works and held him at the Strafford County Department of Corrections facility in Dover, New Hampshire.
Judge Joseph Laplante of the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire ordered Tendo’s release during a Friday morning hearing in Concord, as first reported by Seven Days. Laplante sided with an argument from Tendo’s complaint that ICE did not follow procedure after his arrest, according to Chris Worth, one of Tendo’s attorneys who was in court Friday.
“I think that everyone on the legal team is extremely relieved that Pastor Tendo is back home in Vermont, where he should be with his community,” Worth said.
Tendo was processed for release Friday at the ICE headquarters in Massachusetts and was on his way back to Vermont, Worth said at 4 p.m.
Marybeth Redmond, a fellow minister from Vermont who was among Tendo’s supporters in the courthouse Friday, said his supporters were relieved with the decision.
“Pastor Tendo is exactly the kind of person our asylum system is meant to support,” she said in an email. “We need immigrants like Steven who give so generously to our Vermont communities over the past five years. He has a challenging road ahead in terms of his case, but today was a definitive victory!”
Jacob Berkowitz, president of UVMMC Support Staff United, the union that represents support staff at the University of Vermont Medical Center, said he heard the news just after a rally in Burlington on Friday, which about 150 people attended.
“I wasn’t really expecting to get good news, so that was a very pleasant surprise,” said Berkowitz, who knows Tendo from his work as a licensed nursing assistant at the UVM Medical Center.
Tendo’s recent detainment elicited communitywide support and protests in Vermont, with calls for his swift release.
“We’re overjoyed by the court order releasing Steven from immigration detention,” said Will Lambek, an organizer with Migrant Justice who also advocated for Tendo’s release. “He never should have been detained to begin with, and every day that he spent behind bars was one day too many. But we’re excited to welcome him back home.”
Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, credited the community response for keeping Tendo’s detention in the spotlight and said the Friday ruling reaffirmed that the rule of law prevails.
