ICE and GEO Group denied an elderly priest in Aurora detention adequate testing for suspected tuberculosis and cancer symptoms

Colorado Newsline reported August 14, 2026 that Edward Nalwamba, a 78-year-old Ugandan-born retired Anglican priest who lived in Colorado for more than two decades, has been held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the GEO Group-operated Aurora ICE Processing Center since September 2025. He has presented respiratory symptoms -- coughing, chest pain, a scratchy throat, headaches, dizziness and fatigue -- for months, symptoms a medical provider who reviewed his case said could indicate tuberculosis. He has become severely malnourished and is now wheelchair-bound after a fall in early August, having nearly fallen on several other occasions. "My chest pain is still on and when I cough I get a sharp pain in the head," Nalwamba wrote to a friend. "I really don't know what's happening to my body. These people have tinkered with my health so much."

His attorney, Joy Athanasiou, said the facility's medical providers have given him only cough medicine, a chest X-ray, and a stethoscope exam -- "very minimal treatment" with no aggressive testing despite ongoing symptoms. Katherine Soo, a physician assistant who reviewed Nalwamba's full medical file at the attorneys' request, found he had tested positive on a TB skin test when he entered custody in September 2025, meaning he likely carries latent tuberculosis and is at elevated risk of developing active disease if exposed to someone else with it -- which is a live risk, since Adams County health officials had already confirmed at least one active TB case at the facility. Soo said she would "strongly urge" a sputum culture, the standard confirmatory test, which Nalwamba has not received. His medical records separately show an enlarged prostate and elevated prostate-specific antigen levels, indicators of possible cancer that Athanasiou said have not led to a specialist referral.

Colorado public-health authorities have struggled to investigate the facility's TB outbreak at all: GEO did not respond to requests for access, and Adams County issued a public health order on June 25, 2026 requiring the facility's cooperation, followed by a further order from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. An ICE spokesperson said the agency provides "comprehensive medical care" and that "for many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives." Nalwamba's attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition seeking his release earlier in 2026; a judge denied it after ICE told the court it had scheduled his deportation, and the attorneys filed a new habeas petition in mid-August after ICE continued to hold him. Athanasiou said ICE has repeatedly told Nalwamba he was about to be released, only to instead pressure him in the release-processing area to sign paperwork agreeing to deportation; ICE said it categorically does not pressure people to self-deport.