GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A Gwinnett County barber and double amputee is home with his family this week after more than 15 months inside a South Georgia immigration detention center.
Rodney Taylor walked out of Stewart Detention Center on May 1 following 473 days in ICE custody.
He spoke publicly on Monday at a Gwinnett County news conference, surrounded by his wife, his attorney and members of his coalition.
“When I was in detention, the day I got there, they told me I was going to be deported in three months,” he said. “No going to court, no seeing a judge, not anything.”
Taylor came to the U.S. from Liberia at age two on a medical visa.
ICE arrested him outside his Loganville home in January 2025, citing a burglary conviction from when Taylor was 16.
His attorney said Georgia pardoned him for that conviction in 2010.
“A month ago, I wouldn’t believe I’d be here right now,” Taylor said, standing in front of supporters at the Asian Americans Advancing Justice office in Gwinnett County. “It is a blessing to be free.”
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Taylor said staff denied him the protective liners he needed for his prosthetics.
Without them, he said, every step ground his knees into the concrete.
“They refused to feed me for three weeks because they expected me to walk the length of a football field six times a day just to get some meals,” he said.
He said the air conditioning broke for months during the summer, ceilings leaked when it rained, and detainees sometimes drank water with black mold deposits.
“If you’re not bleeding or dying, put in a sick call; it can take two weeks just to see a nurse and then another two weeks just to see the doctor,” Taylor said.
Channel 2 Action News contacted the Department of Homeland Security on Monday for a response. The agency has not yet provided one.
Taylor’s attorney first asked ICE to release Taylor in March 2025.
“It took well over a year for them to do the right thing,” said Sarah Owings.
A coalition that included Taylor’s wife, members of Congress, and advocacy groups like El Refugio and We Are CASA, pressed for his release throughout the detention.
“I never touched him for over a year,” Mildred Taylor said. “All we relied on was his voice.”
Not everyone shares the coalition’s view of the agency.
Justice Nwaigwe, chairman of the Gwinnett County GOP, said ICE has his support.
“Those checkpoints initially in the proactive part have been kind of porous over the last administration,” Nwaigwe said. “So now we have to double down and do the work and be reactive as well. They’re just doing their job. So, we’ve got to support our men in uniform, and that includes ICE.”
ICE detention nationwide is up 73% from a year ago.
Taylor’s case remains under appeal. His family is raising money for assistance with living expenses (https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-rodney-rebuild-after-ice-detention).
“We are human beings,” Taylor said. “The things that’s going on, somebody has to speak about it.”
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