Mildred Taylor takes notes while on a organizing zoom call for the campaign to free her husband from immigration detention on Thursday, March 26, 2026.
The early heat of spring crept under a shaded pavilion in Fairburn as throngs of people danced to upbeat music. They were closing out a weekend of wedding celebrations following Liberian traditions.
Mildred Taylor took the mic to emcee her sister–in-law’s wedding cookout.
“Husband and wife! We’re hungry, but we can’t eat without you.” Mildred beckoned to the newlywed couple to grab food from tables laden with platters of spicy fish stew, collards, fufu, pork, vegan greens and ginger shots.
“Rodney would be doing this if he were here,” she noted.
Instead, her husband, Rodney Taylor, was a few hundred miles away in Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. He called from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility to support his sister during her wedding weekend.
“He was like, ‘My God, it’s so beautiful. I wish I was there.’ I said, ‘Well, we’re not taking it down until you come home.”
Mildred Taylor on leaving up their Snoopy-themed Christmas decorations until Rodney returned home.
“It’s bittersweet,” he said on the phone, “I’m sad I can’t be there, but I’m happy for it. I’m happy y’all are over there enjoying all the festivities.”
Rodney’s mom, Leona Dickerson Williams, said there were moments throughout the wedding weekend the family spent crying, missing Rodney.
“He should be here right now. Seriously, he should be here with his family,” she said. “But Mildred has been, she has been a beacon in our household. She has been the pillar.”
Mildred Taylor, whose husband has been in detained at Stewart Detention Center for over a year, stands in line in front of the ICE field office in Atlanta, Ga to deliver over 7,600 petitions demanding her spouses release. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
How were the Taylors affected by Rodney’s detainment?
Mildred’s day-to-day had been laser-focused on keeping her family moving forward since ICE arrested Rodney in February 2025 based on a burglary conviction from when he was a teen, even though the state of Georgia pardoned him for that conviction in 2010.
Rodney came to the United States on a medical visa when he was two years old from Liberia through the Shriners organization to receive treatment for deformities in his limbs. Today, he uses two prosthetic legs and is missing three fingers on his right hand.
From the moment Rodney was detained, Mildred flagged that her then-fiancé needed specific care for his disabilities while in detention. That turned into raising the alarm that he did not receive adequate medical care at Stewart.
“This type of work is not for the faint of heart. You have to be fearless. bold and have the audacity. I have the audacity.”
Mildred Tayloron her advocacy work.
His case rose to national attention at a Department of Homeland Security hearing where U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath questioned then-Secretary of DHS Kristi Noem about Rodney’s treatment in detention.
“He went six days without a shower because the facility lacked the appropriate medical equipment,” McBath told Noem at a congressional hearing.
“When he finally got a shower stool, he found moldy showers covered in feces and bodily fluids. He was threatened with disciplinary action if he tries to use that shower stool. Rodney must crawl through that muck and squalor of feces and bodily fluids to enter and exit the showers.”
Rodney Taylor sits next to his wife Mildred during their first public appearance since Taylor’s release on Monday, May 11, 2026. (Matthew Pearson/WABE)
For all the forward momentum Mildred built to push ICE to release Rodney, she was also still a little stuck in the past.
This spring, Christmas decor hung around their house from last December.
That was intentional, Mildred said. She didn’t want Rodney to miss the Snoopy-themed Christmas he’d admired over a video call last year.
“He was like, ‘My God, it’s so beautiful. I wish I was there.’ I said, ‘Well, we’re not taking it down until you come home,’” she said.
He and Mildred have five kids living at home. They were taking their two elementary-aged daughters to school before Mildred dropped Rodney off at the barbershop where he worked when ICE arrested him.
“When Rodney first got detained, the kids’ school teachers kept calling, asking why the kids would cry and cry,” she remembers. “They had different crying spells. They were sad.”
How did Mildred Taylor advocate for her husband’s health and safety?
Mildred’s mornings still started with taking the girls to school at the same time, in the same car, on the same route as the morning ICE took Rodney from their cul-de-sac. She single-parented on one income while Rodney was in detention. Every day, he checked in on her and the kids over the phone.
A combination of health issues and Rodney’s prolonged detention spurred Mildred to leave her job and take up consulting and part-time work with immigrant advocacy organizations. She spoke at the Georgia State Capitol and with members of the U.S. Congress who advocated for Rodney at the federal level.
She said she knows she’s in a position of privilege because she’s a born U.S. citizen and feels like she can speak out; because of that, she’s become a resource for other wives in similar situations.
“This type of work is not for the faint of heart. You have to be fearless. bold and have the audacity. I have the audacity,” Mildred said.
Rodney was suddenly released earlier this month after more than a year in detention.
The Snoopy Christmas decoration still hung around the Taylors’ home.
“We got pictures around the Christmas tree and everything, it threw a lot of people off,” Rodney said, from home.
“I am justified. I am satisfied,” said Mildred. “We can take it down now.”
Rodney Taylor and family hold a belated Christmas celebration. (Courtesy of Mildred Taylor)
Rodney’s immigration status is still pending. He wears a wrist monitor and has frequent check-ins with ICE. The couple plans to build on the national momentum from Rodney’s case to help other disabled people get out of ICE detention.
