Edward Nalwamba walked out of the Aurora detention facility on Tuesday evening after a federal magistrate ordered him freed, ending 13 months in custody. The 79-year-old could not stand on his own, and two men carried him out after guards had taken away his wheelchair.
He learned on Monday that U.S. Magistrate Judge Cyrus Y. Chung had ordered his release, but he did not believe it until Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents gave him formal paperwork. For Nalwamba, the moment was the end of a long detention in which ICE had repeatedly tried to deport him and had kept saying removal was close.
The order turned on a simple failure of proof. Chung found that federal officials had not shown any certainty that they could remove Nalwamba to Uganda, and he wrote that there was still no removal and not even a concrete plan for one. He also said ICE was working on scheduling a charter flight that it had previously described as imminent.
Nalwamba had come to the U.S. for a religious conference in 2002 and stayed. He said he feared retaliation if he returned to Uganda because he had publicly opposed the government there. He was arrested in September 2025, though he had been arrested and released once before, in 2010, under a supervision order, and he said he kept up with regular immigration check-ins for years afterward.
The release also exposed the pressure around his case. Nalwamba said he was later told he would be freed, then taken to a room and pushed to sign a document. His lawyer said ICE agents threatened to deport him in shackles if he refused. ICE tried the same tactic again in late July, and Nalwamba said he was left wondering why any of that was necessary. “What was the need for them to shackle me on my hands, feet, waist?” he said. “What was the need?”
Joy Athanasiou, speaking after the release, said, “Obviously, we’re so thrilled and relieved that he’s being released.” But the larger question in Nalwamba’s case remains open: after months of saying deportation was imminent, ICE still has not shown that it can actually carry out a removal, and the judge’s order makes clear that a promise is not the same thing as a plan.
