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Representative Pramila Jayapal and 20 members of Congress are seeking the release of Rodney Taylor from Stewart detention center in Georgia<\/a>, several weeks after the one-year anniversary of when agents seized the double amputee outside his suburban home in Loganville, about 40 miles north-east of Atlanta.<\/p>\n The representatives sent a two-page letter<\/a> on 17 February to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and Todd Lyons, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement<\/a> (ICE), drawing extensively from the Guardian\u2019s reporting and quoting several<\/a> stories<\/a> in detail with \u201cgrave concern\u201d due to Taylor\u2019s \u201cextreme hardship in detention and [because] his health is continuing to deteriorate\u201d.<\/p>\n Several experts told the Guardian they hadn\u2019t seen such a case, with so many members of Congress advocating on behalf of an ICE detainee.<\/p>\n Taylor\u2019s health issues include not having properly calibrated prosthetic legs, needing new linings for the prosthetics, not being able to charge the prosthetics as needed, high blood pressure and, as of late last year,<\/a> bone spurs in his back. The lack of silicone linings has caused boils. He has recently been given a wheel chair \u2013 something he has never used \u2013 but his right hand is missing three fingers, so using it has caused pain in his wrist.<\/p>\n The letter also mentions previously unreported details of Taylor\u2019s conditions at the overcrowded detention center, such as having to crawl through \u201cshowers [that] were moldy, covered in feces, and bodily fluids\u201d. Stewart is \u201cno longer providing Mr. Taylor accommodation for meals\u201d, requiring him \u201cto get his meals three times a day by himself\u201d \u2013 despite the issues with the prosthetics and the wheelchair.<\/p>\n Mildred Danis-Taylor, Rodney\u2019s wife, told the Guardian that detainees without easy access to bathrooms defecate and urinate in the shower. There\u2019s also mold, blood, food and semen on the floor, she said. For Taylor to shower, he has to take off his prosthetics. Then he has to crawl along the floor to a shower chair.<\/p>\n As for getting to meals, in a call from Stewart on Thursday, Taylor told the Guardian that Jason Streeval, warden of Stewart, said \u201cthis is not Uber Eats\u201d when informing him of the recent change.<\/p>\n The details in the letter \u201cleave me speechless\u201d, said Joseph Nwadiuko, a University of Pennsylvania professor of medicine who researches immigration. \u201cThese are repeated acts of dehumanization.\u201d<\/p>\n Ryan Gustin, spokesperson for CoreCivic, the company that runs Stewart detention center, wrote in an email that he couldn\u2019t comment due to medical privacy laws \u2013 but that the company is \u201ccommitted to providing safe, humane and respectful care for everyone entrusted to us\u201d. In answer to follow-up questions about Taylor\u2019s experience in the shower and Streeval\u2019s remark, Gustin said: \u201cWe vehemently deny these allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n ICE did not respond to the Guardian\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Prayapal, serves on the House judiciary committee, where she is a ranking member of a subcommittee<\/a> dealing with immigration. Other signees include California\u2019s Ro Khanna and Michigan\u2019s Rashida Tlaib.<\/p>\n An effort seeking an ICE detainee\u2019s release for medical reasons backed by so many lawmakers is unusual, said Nwadiuko.<\/p>\n \u201cThis many members of Congress being on the same page is not something I\u2019ve seen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It is also the second time the Guardian\u2019s coverage of Taylor\u2019s case has been cited, after senator Raphael Warnock wrote <\/a>Noem on 29 October 2025, urging the her to consider the detainee\u2019s \u201cpressing health issues\u201d \u2013 while stopping short of seeking his release.<\/p>\n Nwadiuko said that Taylor\u2019s case is one of \u201cmissed opportunities\u201d, where he continues being \u201cexposed to risks that could endanger his life\u201d.<\/p>\n Brought to the US from Liberia by his mother on a medical visa when he was a small child, Taylor has had 16 operations. Now 47, he has lived in the US nearly his entire life. He got engaged only 10 days before ICE detained him in January. The agency apparently seized him due to a burglary conviction from when he was a teenager and for which the state of Georgia pardoned him in 2010, according to attorney Sarah Owings, who shared Taylor\u2019s paperwork with the Guardian.<\/a><\/p>\n Taylor has a pending application for US residence \u2013 commonly known as a green card \u2013 but has not been released on bond, despite having a habeas corpus petition before a federal judge since September. <\/a>He is a barber and active in cancer prevention efforts in his community.<\/p>\n