Woman detained by ICE is not getting proper medical care in a Kentucky jail, brother says

“I stayed by the cab to make sure she boarded very well. And then she was supposed to give me a call,” Kabunga said. “A few minutes later, she came out with the ICE agents, and I noticed they were putting handcuffs on her.” 

He said he asked the ICE agents why she was being arrested, and they had said she overstayed her visa. 

Bukirwa opened a nonprofit during the pandemic, Sarafina Sickle Cell Cell Society. Under a visa, she came to the U.S. from Uganda to expand her work and applied for asylum. McGarvey said that while privacy release forms prevent him from going into specifics, Bukirwa “is doing everything the way that the rules and the laws have been laid out for her to do” and has a pending asylum claim. 

Kabunga said Bukirwa had been discharged from a Louisville hospital the day before she went to the airport after experiencing a medical “crisis.” Since she has been held in the jail, Kabunga said during a Sunday visit, that was the first day Bukirwa said she received all of her medication. Throughout the week, however, she wasn’t getting all of her prescriptions and some of it “they were diluting it in water, and then giving it to her.” 

McGarvey said an attorney for Bukirwa was filing a habeas corpus motion, which lets a person challenge their detention. The congressman’s office has also contacted ICE about Bukirwa. 

“This is one of our neighbors. This is a Louisvilleian, somebody who went to the airport to fly to a conference to help other people with sickle cell anemia, who got taken away from her family and sent to a jail where we don’t know that she’s getting the medical care she needs to stay alive,” McGarvey said. “This woman has done nothing wrong. She has never been charged with so much as a speeding ticket.”

Online jail records do not list a clear charge for Bukirwa. 

Earlier this week, McGarvey joined Democrats U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, of Illinois, and U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, of Wisconsin, at the Campbell County Detention Center to get a closer look at jail conditions for ICE detainees there.  

According to data from Relevant Research, the Grayson County Detention Center is holding 168 people on behalf of ICE, and of that, 138 of those people are in the non-criminal population. Throughout Kentucky, about 10 jails are housing about 1,200 people for ICE. They typically receive federal funding for housing the detainees. 

Grayson County Jailer Jason Woosley, an elected Republican, did not immediately return a voicemail or email seeking comment Thursday morning. He told radio station K105 that the claims from Bukirwa’s family were false and she is “currently receiving and has been receiving all the medications that she is prescribed as well as medical attention.”