USA: Retired Catholic priest detained by ICE
Father Edward Nalwamba
A 78-year-old Colorado priest has been in ICE detention for almost a year. He is now malnourished, in a wheelchair, has a persistent cough, and with chest pain. The only treatment he gets is cough medicine.
Father Edward Nalwamba came to the US from Uganda in 2002 and worked about 15 years as a priest at a church in Greenwood Village before retiring. ICE agents arrested him in Lakewood in September. He has no criminal history, and his attorney says he complied with ICE check-ins for roughly 14 years before that.
Joy Athanasiou, one of his immigration lawyers, says Nalwamba is now extremely malnourished and wheelchair-bound. He fell in early August and has nearly fallen several other times. His symptoms include coughing, chest pain, a scratchy voice, headaches, dizziness and fatigue.
He has had a chest X-ray and had a doctor listen to his lungs with a stethoscope. Katherine Soo, a physician assistant who reviewed his full medical file, found he tested positive on a TB skin test right after ICE took him into custody, and says he still has not gotten the sputum culture testing that would rule out active tuberculosis.
The Aurora facility, run by private prison company GEO Group, had a laboratory-confirmed active TB case this year. A man detained inside said at least 12 people have tested positive. Colorado health officials have been trying to get inside and investigate since a county public health order on June 25. GEO has not complied. The state issued its own order Thursday, giving GEO until Monday to turn over the names of everyone who tested positive or was exposed. More than 400 people work in that building.
In messages to a friend, Nalwamba wrote, "I really don't know what's happening to my body. These people have tinkered with my health so much." In another, he wrote, "Brother, I cough until I feel my chest will burst."
His records also show indicators for possible prostate cancer, including elevated PSA levels. He has not seen a specialist.
LINKS
Pulse report: www.pulse.ug/story/us-citizens-protest-detention-of-ugandan-elderly-pastor-in-colorado-2026071906132892176
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