(WABE)
On Monday, Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath visited Rodney Taylor, a 47-year-old Loganville man who uses two prosthetic legs, at Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia.
The visit came after McBath highlighted Taylor’s case at a House Judiciary committee hearing, demanding that former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem respond to a letter she and 20 other members of Congress sent questioning why the man remained in immigration detention as he developed further health complications due to a lack of specific care tailored to his disabilities.
“I wanted to be able to assess how he was doing physically, morally, spiritually, just psychologically,” McBath said. “I wanted to be able to assess that for myself and have a one-on-one discussion with him.”
At the hearing, Noem said she had not seen the letter and would look into it. McBath told WABE that since then, DHS responded to the letter, “claiming that they’re following all of the standards and the protocol that are issued in their codes that they’re supposed to abide by,” she said.
“But to hear directly from Rodney, that definitely is not the case.”
In the nearly 15 months Taylor’s been in detention, he’s had many cellmates come and go. Taylor told McBath that he feels afraid to take off his prosthetics because he doesn’t want anything to happen to them, and he also doesn’t feel comfortable exposing strangers to the care his legs need, which chafes against his prosthetics.
“I’m just really distressed because, you know, we’re just talking about Rodney’s case,” McBath said. “But let’s talk about all the other detainees as well that are not receiving the care and the attention that they deserve.”
Taylor came to the United States on a medical visa when he was two years old from Liberia through the Shriners organization to receive treatment for deformities in his limbs.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him at his home based on a burglary conviction from when he was a teen that the state of Georgia pardoned Taylor for in 2010, according to his attorney Sarah Owings.
In a statement to WABE, a DHS spokesperson said Taylor has refused the medical treatment offered to him in detention, and that “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens. This is the best healthcare that many aliens have received in their entire lives.”
McBath said that while she doesn’t have the power to single-handedly get Taylor out of detention, she can hold ICE to its detention standards, advocate for humane treatment of those detained, and push for better standards.
“That is our responsibility to be able to go into these facilities to check to see what the environment is, what the climate is, and how these individuals are being treated,” she said.