Hickenlooper Conducts ICE Oversight Visit, Meets with Detained Greenwood Village Pastor Facing Imminent Deportation

Hickenlooper vowed to press admin to pause Pastor Edward Nalwamba's deportation

DENVER - This afternoon, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper conducted a congressional oversight visit at the GEO ICE detention facility in Aurora, where he met with Pastor Edward Nalwamba, who faces imminent deportation. Hickenlooper vowed to press the Trump administration to pause Pastor Nalwamba's deportation, consistent with U.S. law protecting individuals at risk of persecution. He also pledged to demand answers on why Pastor Nalwamba has not received the medical care he is legally entitled to.

"Colorado Pastor Edward Nalwamba should be with his own congregation today. Instead, he's being detained here by ICE in this detention facility and faces imminent deportation to Uganda where he fears persecution because of his pro-democracy advocacy," Hickenlooper said in a video outside the facility. "I told him that we will do everything we can to press this administration to pause his deportation, because we have laws to protect people at risk of persecution… America has always been a nation of immigrants, and we're going to keep fighting for Pastor Edward - and for an immigration system that is humane, just, and really worthy of our values."

Hickenlooper has been outspoken in the face of ICE's lawlessness and demanded a top-to-bottom overhaul of the agency to stop ICE from terrorizing our communities. Hickenlooper also voted against the DHS funding bill because it failed to overhaul ICE. He has consistently pushed for more oversight andtransparency for federal immigration enforcement efforts, and has worked to help families desperately searching for loved ones arrested by ICE. In January, Hickenlooper spoke on the Senate floor to denounce the horrifying killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, condemn the reports that families in Eagle County found "death cards" left in the cars of family members taken by ICE agents, and to demand the overhaul of ICE. He's shown up at ICE facilities previously to conduct congressional oversight visits and raise concerns about ICE disregarding due process. He helped launch an investigation into ICE's unlawful obstruction of congressional oversight and introduced bills to ban ICE from wearing masks, prevent immigration enforcement from targeting schools, hospitals, polling locations, and places of worship, and cut back the excessive funding that MAGA Republicans gave them.

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