ATLANTA — Before she was ousted by President Donald Trump, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem got grilled by a Georgia congresswoman about the way her agency had treated a Loganville man with severe disabilities.
Double amputee Rodney Taylor had been in federal custody for over a year, since agents swarmed the family vehicle and seized him in January 2025.
The husband and father of two was brought to America from Liberia at age 2 for medical treatment. He was born with a deformed left foot, a missing right foot, and three fingers missing from his right hand. He had lived without both legs since they were amputated when he was a child.
Taylor, 47, received a criminal conviction as a teenager, which led to his detention by the federal agents. But Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Marietta, said at Noem’s hearing Wednesday that former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue had pardoned him and that Taylor had a Green Card application pending. She also said he had been held at the Stewart Detention Center in squalid conditions.
Under the care of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Taylor lost 20 pounds, so his prosthetic legs no longer fit, McBath said. The agency made him drag himself to the shower, in less than sanitary conditions, she added.
“Rodney must crawl through that muck and squalor of feces and bodily fluids to enter and exit the shower,” she said. “This is despicable. It’s inhumane torture that no person should have to endure.”
Noem said she was unaware of his case but promised to research it and get back to McBath and Taylor’s wife within two weeks.
That probably will not happen now that Trump has removed Noem.
Taylor is married to a U.S. citizen, Mildred Pierre, and they have two young children.
Pierre went to the Georgia Capitol in January in hopes of drawing attention to her husband’s plight. She said then that she feared for his health. She said he had elevated blood pressure due to the conditions in detention.
“I’m scared they’re going to send him home in a box,” she said.
Taylor is a barber and was the main breadwinner, she said. His conviction for burglary was long behind him and he was a family man when his life was upended, she said.
The kids were 4 and 6 when federal agents surrounded the family vehicle two houses down the street from their home, boxing them in with unmarked vehicles and emerging with ballistic vests and no identification, she said.
“It was scary because they all had their guns and my kids were in the car,” she said. The children were crying and inconsolable, she said.
She said they get to visit him in detention on occasion but that they are separated by glass and talk over a telecommunications system.
