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US prepares to Deportation A 78-year-old retired pastor in Uganda, a country located in East Africa near the center of the country Ebola Outbreak. The pastor also claims to be the target of the country’s authoritarian government.
Edward Nalwamba came to the United States from Uganda in 2002 and had been living and working in Colorado while subject to a “supervision order,” which is when someone has a removal order but cannot be immediately removed from the country. His lawyers say this order was revoked in September 2025, and he has been detained since then. Nalwamba is scheduled to be deported on Tuesday.
According to his lawyer and a friend, Naluamba’s health deteriorated sharply during the nine months he spent in immigration detention, raising concerns about his deportation to an outbreak zone.
Uganda and its neighbor, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are at the epicenter of the recent Ebola outbreak, which has led to the spread of the Ebola virus. More than 300 people were killed. Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a Travel health notice For Uganda, it encouraged travelers to practice “enhanced precautions.” It is not clear how many immigrants the United States is currently deporting to Uganda.
The Nalwamba case lies at the intersection of several major changes introduced by the second administration of President Donald Trump. Since January 2025, the US government has choked off foreign aid, resulting in numerous deaths. USAID (USAID) almost completely. Meanwhile, he lost Billions of dollars were pumped In the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and immigration operations.
Nalwamba first arrived in the United States on a tourist visa to attend a religious conference. In 2001, during Uganda’s presidential election, Nalwamba claimed he was one of several people in his city who were taken from their homes in the middle of the night and interrogated by armed security forces about his ties to the political opposition, according to court documents filed in 2010. Nalwamba has refused to instruct members of his church to vote for the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986 and whose government took power. Keep targeting Members of the political opposition recently Earlier this year.
He says that during the religious conference, people Nalwamba knew in Uganda called him to warn him of the deteriorating political situation in the country. While in the United States, Nalwamba received a threatening fax that made him afraid to return to his home country. Nallwamba decided to remain in the United States and apply for asylum.
“He has feared and feared all along up to the present that if he returned to Uganda, he would be imprisoned, tortured or killed, and Ugandan authorities have come looking for him several times over the years,” says Joy Athanasiou, an immigration attorney representing Naluamba.
Athanasiou claims that Naluamba had problems with the first immigration lawyer who “disappeared without filing the application.” These and other matters complicated his application for asylum, and although it was rejected, he was issued a “stay of deportation.” Nalwamba was arrested on September 18, 2025 and is being held at a detention center in Aurora, Colorado operated by GEO Group, a private prison company.
Once in custody, Athanasiou says Nalwamba’s property, including papers and documents, was confiscated. “He thought some of his immigration papers were in there,” she says. Additionally, because Athanasiou has not represented Naluamba in prior immigration cases, she does not have access to some of the records and documents of his prior cases. “You have to make a formal request for a copy of the client file through the Freedom of Information Act,” she says. A former lawyer applied for Naluamba’s records, but was only given “part of the file” while other requests are still pending. “This has been a big problem for the government under the current administration,” Athanasiou says.
