Sixteen years into his quest for asylum, a Ugandan immigrant is on the verge of being deported

Waltham resident Gedion Masunsu, 42, worked to escape the dictatorship of Uganda and gain political asylum in the United States, first by aiding U.S. troops in Iraq and then by learning about police work through the Waltham Police Department’s Citizens Academy. 

For the first 15 years of his campaign, Masunsu appeared to be making good progress. But in early 2025 he had problems first in a personal relationship and then in his legal representation. They hit just as the Trump administration initiated a crackdown on immigrants. As a result, he has spent the last 19 months in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Strafford County Jail in Dover, New Hampshire. 

Even in detention, Masunsu has sought to be useful. A devout Christian, his main activity at the jail is to lead 50 to 60 of the other ICE detainees in a 20-minute gathering every afternoon as they sing religious songs and pray. Guards told Masunsu’s legal representative that the prayer meetings have significantly reduced fights and tension among the inmates over the last few months. 

A Waltham Times reporter pieced Masunsu’s story together by reviewing his 40-page asylum petition package, interviewing him briefly by phone (where the conversations are subject to monitoring by jail personnel) and emailing questions via his legal representative, paralegal Rosette Serwanga. 

Between 2010 to 2021, Gedion worked for two American military contractors providing security to U.S. bases in Iraq. He searched incoming cars and trucks, checked visitor IDs and monitored perimeter security.  

Masunsu helped save the lives of two U.S. military personnel while patrolling bases, he said. In one situation, he said he heard screams from an Air Force servicewoman named Faith, who had been injured when a metal locker fell on her head; Masunsu radioed for medical assistance and, after Faith received emergency treatment, she was airlifted to Germany for further care. In another situation, he found a U.S. service member unconscious after striking his head against a water heater. Masunsu said he began CPR and radioed for medical assistance. 

Masunsu received two medals for his life-saving actions, along with three certificates of appreciation; one from the 1st Infantry Division stated, “Your exceptional support and hard work contributed to the completion of many projects for the camp and our soldiers.” 

Seeking a new life

After that, Masunsu returned briefly to Uganda in 2021 and concluded that his previous involvement as a member of the political opposition there put him in serious personal danger. He fled to the United States in 2022, moved in with a friend in Waltham and petitioned immigration authorities for political asylum. Waltham is a heavily immigrant city, with more than one-fourth of its 65,000 residents being immigrants; this includes a thriving Ugandan immigrant community. 

With hopes of utilizing his security experience in Iraq, Masunsu enrolled in a 12-week Waltham police program, the Waltham Citizens Police Academy. The once-a-week three-hour program included sessions on police patrol procedures, narcotics investigations, domestic violence, firearm training and patrol ride-alongs; participants needed to pass a criminal background check. 

Although Masunsu completed the program and has authorization to work in the U.S., not having American citizenship limited his employment options to work as a health-care aide and Uber driver. 

He continued his record of good deeds in the summer of 2024, intervening to stop a suicide near the Waltham YMCA by pursuing a man nearly a mile on foot and helping return him to the YMCA, where Waltham police took over the intervention. 

An early 2025 domestic incident upended his plans. An argument with Sylvia Mamutabi Mugisha, also a Ugandan immigrant, involved loud shouting that led to a call to police. Waltham police responded, and officers arrested and charged Masunsu on four counts of assault and battery and one count of destruction of property. Masunsu was held for several days before being released on his own recognizance. A few weeks later, Massachusetts Judge Ellen M. Caulo dismissed all charges against Masunsu.

ICE picked up Masunsu several days after the dismissal. 

Masunsu suffered a rotator cuff injury while being transported in an ICE van, an injury that was diagnosed by specialists while he was imprisoned. However, he said the injury was not properly treated during his detention and now threatens to disable him. 

Masunsu and Mugisha married this spring while he was still in detention. One of Mugisha’s children, Paris Kirunda, 23, wrote a letter of support for her stepfather’s petition for political asylum, in which she described him as “a man who has become so much more than my mother’s partner – he has become family. From the moment Gedion came into our lives, he embraced my siblings and me with genuine love, kindness, and respect. … Watching someone with such a caring heart remain in detention for such a long time has been incredibly painful for our entire family..” 

Mugisha didn’t respond to requests for an interview. 

A credible case for asylum

Meanwhile, Masunsu’s immigration case grinds on.

Masunsu had passed an initial fear screening, meaning that he had reason to fear persecution in Uganda, and in April 2025 an immigration judge found his testimony credible and granted him withholding of removal, a form of protection from being sent back to Uganda. 

The government appealed that ruling, with an immigration judge issuing a removal order dated March 31, 2026, followed by the Board of Immigration Appeals’ dismissal of Masunsu’s appeal on Sept. 15.

Serwanga contested the chain of actions. According to Serwanga, “Our understanding is that his former attorney filed that appeal late. If the Board dismissed it for that reason, it did not decide the substance of his protection claim. The earlier favorable credibility finding remains part of his history, but it does not, on its own, prevent removal under the current order.”

Masunsu is now subject to possible deportation, either back to Uganda or to a third country that hasn’t been identified. 

“I have no charges against me,” he told The Waltham Times reporter over the phone. “I am being held for no reason.”

Until he gets a new immigration lawyer, paralegal Serwanga, has become desperate over the possibility Masunsu could be deported. “I can’t sleep at night,” she said.

Masunsu said he tries to take heart from the daily prayer meetings he leads in jail. Detainees “talk about how the prayer changes their lives. … They have forgiven the people” who imprisoned them. 

In a log he keeps of “Prayer requests,” he includes this one: “God to help me forgive those who have hurt me and to have peace in my heart.”