“It’s completely unforeseen, completely shocking, and outrageous that he would be detained,” said Will Lambek, an organizer with the Vermont advocacy group Migrant Justice.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Seven Days first reported his detention.

Tendo, 41, has become a prominent community organizer in Vermont since relocating to the state in 2021.

An ordained Pentecostal minister, he has said that he faced political persecution and torture in Uganda after his charity, Eternal Life Organization International Ministries, criticized the Ugandan government. He has said that forces aligned with the authoritarian Museveni regime cut off two of his fingers, and that his brother and uncle were killed due to their political activities.

“The missing fingers on my left hand are a constant reminder of this brutality,” he wrote in a testimonial for his employer, the University of Vermont Medical Center.

A federal immigration judge denied Tendo’s asylum application in 2019. He spent two years in an immigration detention center in Texas — and later sued the Department of Homeland Security over his treatment there. Investigators for the department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties have acknowledged wrongdoing.

Tendo has garnered support from prominent politicians. In 2020, US Representative Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote a letter signed by 44 members of Congress urging the federal government to release him.

In a written statement Wednesday, all three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation said they were “horrified” to learn of Tendo’s detention and called on the Trump administration to return him to Vermont and ensure due process.

“People like Pastor Tendo are exactly who our asylum system is meant to protect,” wrote Senators Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch and Representative Becca Balint.

Since relocating to Vermont, Tendo has appeared at an ICE facility in St. Albans for regularly scheduled check-ins — often accompanied by crowds of supporters. At one such check-in last July, he told the Globe he felt particularly nervous “because the agency we are dealing with is unpredictable.”

“The wave of fear, the kidnappings that have been happening, really, really make it very hard, even though you know you’re not a criminal,” he said.

Tendo had been scheduled for another check-in this Friday, according to his attorney, Brett Stokes. He had recently filed motions to reopen his asylum case, citing worsening conditions in Uganda, and for a new stay of removal.

Melissa Battah, executive director of Vermont Interfaith Action, said supporters had planned to accompany Tendo to Friday’s check-in. She called ICE “cowards” for detaining him in advance.

“Why send agents out and terrorize a community? To do what? To flex muscles? To show force?” she said. “This is not what a government should be doing to its people — to people they’re entrusted to serve and protect and take care of.”

Jacob Berkowitz, president of the UVMMC Support Staff United labor union, said Tendo had been working as a licensed nursing assistant while attending nursing school and moonlighting at the Shelburne facility.

“He’s the type of person we want around. He’s the type of guy we should have in this country,” Berkowitz said. “If only we all were in service to community, as Steven is, our country would be in a better place.”

Paul Heintz can be reached at paul.heintz@globe.com. Follow him on X @paulheintz.

The Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing is funding 15 organizations through the Grants for Relocation Outreach Work program, according to a community announcement from the department.

The grants support efforts to attract and retain new residents.

The program, known as GROW, is considered a strategic investment in Vermont’s workforce and community vitality, said Lindsay Kurrle, secretary of the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, which oversees the department.

“By investing in locally led relocation and retention efforts, the program helps communities grow and reinforces the connections that keep new residents here,” Kurrle said.

The GROW program has two tracks: relocation and retention. Some organizations received grants for both tracks.

The relocation track supports the state’s relocation lead generation and distribution system via ThinkVermont.com. Grantees are required to connect with and follow up on leads of potential residents interested in moving to their area. Activities can include creating regional marketing assets for out-of-state advertising campaigns.

The organizations receiving relocation track grants are:

• Addison County Economic Development Corporation
• Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation
• Chamber & Economic Development of the Rutland Region
• Franklin County Industrial Development Corporation
• Green Mountain Economic Development Corporation
• Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce
• Lamoille Economic Development Corporation
• Montpelier Downtown Community Association
• Northeast Kingdom Chamber of Commerce
• Out in the Open
• Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce
• Vermont Professionals of Color Network

Republican Lt. Gov. John Rodgers cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate Tuesday to elevate a controversial nominee to Vermont’s highest court.

When Michael Drescher was appointed by Republican Gov. Phil Scott to fill a vacancy on the Vermont Supreme Court last month, he arrived to the confirmation process with what most Democratic lawmakers considered a disqualifying flaw.

As the acting U.S. attorney for Vermont, Drescher led the Trump administration’s high-profile prosecutions of two students, Mohsen Mahdawi and Rümeysa Öztürk, both of whom were arrested and detained by federal immigration authorities last year for their outspoken criticism of the war in Gaza.

During confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Drescher told lawmakers that he took the lead on those cases to spare his assistants from the stain of association with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. He also said it would be “unfair to conclude that I somehow personally supported the policies of the government simply because I was an advocate for those policies in court.”

“Would I have preferred somebody else to have been in the trenches in that case? Absolutely, but that would have been the wrong thing to do as a leader of the office,” Drescher said last month.

Those reassurances did little to win over the 17 Democrats in the Vermont Senate, all but two of whom voted to oppose his nomination Tuesday.

Windham County Sen. Nader Hashim, the Democratic chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that while Drescher hadn’t acted “in an unethical way,” he nonetheless sacrificed the public trust.

“At the end of the day, he did make arguments that were for the purpose of vindicating the unconstitutional detention of two individuals,” Hashim said.

Hashim said hundreds of Vermonters have reached out to him to oppose Drescher’s nomination, which he viewed as reason enough to deny Drescher one of five seats on the bench.

“The social contract between the government and the governed is increasingly fragile, and voting contrary to the many voices of Vermonters would only further contribute to that fragility,” Hashim said.

Bennington County Sen. Robert Plunkett, one of only two Democrats to join all 13 Republicans in support of Drescher’s nomination, cited preservation of that social contract as the reason for his “yes” vote.

Plunkett said he entered the nomination process eager to vote against Drescher.

“I wanted this to be the moment when Vermont stands up and says, ‘It stops here,’” he said. “I wanted to cast a vote that felt like resistance.”

But upon further reflection, and after a long conversation with Drescher, Plunkett reversed course. Had Drescher resigned in protest, Plunkett said, the Trump administration might have replaced him with a functionary who was “willing to bend the rules” in ways that prolonged the detentions of the students.

Plunkett said authoritarian governments rely on the corruption of institutions.

“That happens not just by installing loyalists, but by purging everyone who isn’t,” he said.

By “punishing” Drescher for performing his role in the legal processes that undergird democracy, Plunkett said, “we risk doing that work ourselves.”

Rodgers, who broke the 15-15 tie Tuesday, said Drescher “showed tremendous courage” and has been the subject of “unfair abuse by people in the public that don’t know all the facts.”

Rodgers said he recently had an hourlong phone conversation with Drescher.

“He explained he feared that if he resigned, that the Trump administration would appoint somebody like they have in other districts, who was highly partisan, and that would have been bad for the state of Vermont,” Rodgers said.

In a written statement Tuesday, Scott called Drescher “an exemplary public servant.”

The Senate also voted 23-7 Tuesday to confirm a second Supreme Court nominee, Christina Nolan, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in 2022.

Nolan served as U.S. attorney for Vermont during Trump’s first term.

Justices can serve multiple six-year terms on the Vermont Supreme Court so nominations for the bench are rare. Rarer still, and perhaps unprecedented, is for two seats to become vacant at the same time.