Rodney Taylor is a Liberian-born who was detained by ICE as part of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. He was at Georgia‘s Stewart immigration detention center, where he recently spent three days in a “restrictive housing unit,” or so termed by CoerCivic. However, you would be surprised to know why he ended up there. It is because of a very simple complaint.
According to The Guardian, Rodney refused to enter his cell because it was flooded with above an inch of water due to a leak. It is important to note, he didn’t just complain needlessly. The Liberian-born man had battery-powered microprocessor-controlled prosthetic legs, which could have been damaged if they got wet.
“They don’t see you as an individual, but as someone being deported,” Taylor lamented, taking a jab at the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies. His incident shows how ill-prepared the President and his minions are. Even his fiancée, Mildred Pierre, commented on how the administration’s action made his mental health worse during the last six months, calling it “receiving blow after blow.”
Not only the flood incident on April 25, but he has continued to face various incidents over his stay at the detention center, which included the screws of his prosthetic legs coming out. This made him fall several times and caused injury to his hand.
Although he was sent to a clinic, he couldn’t fit new legs as those were delivered without a charger for the battery. His fiancé, Pierre, bought a charger for those. However, at that time, they were asked to wait two months for the clinic appointment, as they were not adept with Taylor’s model of prosthetics.
Pierre, concerned for her fiancé, spent months “trying to figure out – who do I call? who’s going to listen?”
“I am afraid for Rodent,” she wrote to Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff’s office on Saturday, following the flooding incident. However, ultimately, nothing changed, as the guards at the detention center handcuffed him and placed him in solitary confinement. On Tuesday, Stewart’s assistant warden released him.
However, when he was locked up, he was denied any water to drink and was not allowed to charge the battery in his prosthetic legs. The representative for CoerCivic is now saying that Rodney “is being regularly monitored by facility medical staff, with all known medical issues are being addressed, and our staff continuing to accommodate his needs.”
He also denied that the detention center had any solitary confinement, saying it “does not exist.”
