Gedion Masunsu From a hotel room in Kampala, Uganda, Waltham resident Gedion Masunsu’s voice was tired, confused, and resigned. “I never expected this,” he said. “They took me…I feel bad….I have nothing I can do.” Masunsu spoke from Uganda to a Waltham Times reporter late Friday evening after an abrupt end to his 19 months of detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, most of it at a county jail in Dover, NH, where he sought to avoid deportation (as reported in the Waltham Times). Up until the point he was seized by ICE agents in early 2025, he had seemed to be making progress in his 16-year journey in search of political asylum — a journey that included lengthy stints working for American military contractors in Iraq that earned him several medals and certificates of commendation from the U.S. government. In April 2025, immigration judge Natalie Smith found his request for political asylum credible and granted him withholding of removal, a form of protection from being sent back to Uganda, which has been under an increasingly repressive regime since 1986. The U.S. government appealed that ruling, with Judge Smith issuing a removal order dated March 31, 2026, followed by the Board of Immigration Appeals’ dismissal of Masunsu’s appeal on Sept. 15. According to his paralegal, Rosette Serwanga, the turn in Masunsu’s legal fortunes were likely influenced by charges he assaulted his now-wife Sylvia Mamutabi Mugisha in Waltham in January 2025. The charges were dismissed by Massachusetts judge Ellen M. Caulo within three months, but that dismissal wasn’t immediately entered into Masunsu’s records, damaging his subsequent appeals to the Immigration Court. A devastating 24 hours His removal to Uganda last Wednesday, Sept. 30, came hours after an inquiry from a senior aide in Sen. Edward Markey’s office, Innocent Wozufia, seeking information from ICE about the reasons for Masunsu’s lengthy incarceration. In anticipation of an information release and possible negotiation between ICE and Markey, Masunsu said he had days before signed a waiver of his privacy allowing ICE to reveal his information to Markey. On Wednesday afternoon a guard at the county jail in Dover, NH, ordered Masunsu to “pack up your cell,” he said. The entire jail of several hundred was then placed on lockdown, according to Masunsu, apparently because of Masunsu’s popularity as a leader of daily afternoon prayer meetings. He said he had been credited by guards with reducing tensions at the jail over the previous months of his religious get-togethers. Masunsu was taken from the jail to a large ICE holding facility in Burlington, MA, preparatory to being driven to Logan Airport. At the Burlington facility, Masunsu said he pleaded with ICE officials to give him more time to legally challenge his detention. “I have 15 days,” he said he told them. “Why are you removing me when I have 15 days?” Masunsu was apparently referring to the 30-day grace period immigrants have to file an appeal after having had a plea rejected by Immigration Court, which had happened to Masunsu in mid-September. He said that one ICE employee in charge of processing him seemed sympathetic to his protestations. “He said, ‘I pray for you. I can see you are a guy with no criminal record. It is sad what they have done to you.’ He told me I should apply right away for political asylum when I get to Uganda.” But no one was in a position to change the deportation order. Masunsu suspected that officials at ICE “panicked” when they heard from Markey’s office and rushed to rid themselves of a potential political problem. Masunsu said he and five U.S. marshalls who accompanied him were the only passengers on a United flight from Boston to Washington. From Washington, he was flown to Kampala. ICE alerted Markey’s office Thursday morning that Masunsu was being deported. A lasting legacy Rosette Serwanga. Photo by David Gumpert. Serwanga, Masunsu’s paralegal, has been fielding emails of concern and sadness from inmates who had spent time with Masunsu. Said one: “The two months I spent detained at the New Hampshire immigration facility with Gedion were incredible. …He was a great man of God — a man powerfully used by Him to bless many lives in that place. Even though the outcome wasn’t what he had hoped for, the Lord is certainly with him in Uganda.” Another stated: “Gedion was an instrument in God’s hands in that place, he prayed for everyone, preached to everyone, spoke about Jesus Christ to everyone, and was always an example to all around him. I believe it was God’s will for him to stay there for that period — however long and painful it may have been — for a divine purpose….He provided immense spiritual support and great encouragement during the most difficult time of my life.” Masunsu said from Uganda he wasn’t sure what his next steps might be; most immediately he needs to find a living situation, which won’t be easy because he has no family or friends left there. He received financial assistance from the Ugandan community in Boston for the hotel he was staying at.