Gabriel Johnson’s relatives say they flew to Texas after tracing a hospital phone call and spent hours seeking access before they were given one hour with the 55-year-old pastor.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated following additional information provided directly to theGrio by Gabriel Johnson’s family. The family clarified that they were not granted a visit before traveling to Texas. They traced the hospital that contacted them about Johnson’s stroke, flew to Texas and spent hours seeking access before being allowed to see him for one hour. The story has also been updated to clarify that Johnson’s family had no ability to manage his medication or monitor his health while he was in ICE custody.
The family of Gabriel Johnson, the North Carolina pastor who suffered a stroke while in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, says they had to track him to a Texas hospital and spend hours seeking access before they were given one hour with him. They are continuing to push for his release and answers about the medical care he received while detained.
Johnson, a 55-year-old Liberian immigrant who has lived legally in the United States since he was 15, was taken into ICE custody from his family’s home in Cary, North Carolina, on July 15. Since then, he has been moved through detention facilities in multiple states, ultimately arriving in Texas, where his family says he suffered a stroke on July 30.
Johnson’s family tells theGrio they were not granted a visit before traveling to Texas. Instead, relatives traced the phone number that called to tell them about his stroke to a Texas hospital and flew there hoping to find him.
Once there, the family says they spent hours trying to gain access to Johnson. His daughter, Gabri Johnson, told theGrio that although the Department of Homeland Security has said her father requested visitation, he was not told that his family was at the hospital waiting to see him. The family says they were eventually given one hour with Johnson before being required to leave.
His family says Johnson remains paralyzed on one side of his body and faces a significant recovery.
The visit marks the latest development in a case that has drawn attention to medical care inside the federal immigration detention system and left Johnson’s family fighting on several fronts at once. They are seeking his release so that he can begin rehabilitation while also questioning whether his stroke could have been prevented.
As theGrio previously reported, Johnson has a history of high blood pressure and previous minor strokes. His daughter, Gabri Johnson, said her father repeatedly told relatives during his detention that he was not consistently receiving his prescribed medication, adequate food or water. The family alleges those conditions contributed to his deteriorating health before his stroke.
ICE has described Johnson as a Liberian national targeted as part of an immigration enforcement operation. His family, however, stresses that he came to the United States as a teenager, has maintained legal status for decades and built his life in North Carolina, where he became an ordained pastor, husband and father of four.
Johnson is also a graduate of North Carolina Central University, a historically Black university in Durham.
The circumstances surrounding his detention have become part of his family’s broader demand for transparency. A federal habeas corpus petition challenging Johnson’s detention was filed on July 23 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, where he had been detained before being transferred to Texas.
His relatives have also sought an emergency stay of removal, arguing that Johnson needs time in the United States to receive medical care and rehabilitation before any immigration proceedings move forward.
The family’s concerns intensified after his hospitalization. They said they initially had difficulty communicating directly with Johnson or obtaining information about his location. His daughter previously said a hospital contacted the family to tell them he had suffered a stroke, but they were not immediately able to freely communicate with him.
Now that family members have seen him in person, their focus remains on getting him out of federal custody and into rehabilitation.
The case comes amid broader scrutiny of health and safety conditions within the rapidly expanding U.S. immigration detention system. In North Carolina, the federal government is also moving toward expanding detention capacity, including plans involving the former Rivers Correctional Institution in Hertford County. State and immigrant-rights advocates have raised concerns about medical care, oversight and conditions as detention capacity grows.
For Johnson’s family, however, the policy debate has become deeply personal.
Their father entered ICE custody in mid-July able to communicate with his family. His relatives say that once he was detained, however, they had no ability to manage his medication or health. Instead, they listened as he grew increasingly worried and weak while reporting that he was not consistently receiving medication his family describes as lifesaving. Weeks later, they are trying to secure rehabilitation for a man they say is now living with the physical effects of a major stroke.
And while finally being able to sit with him offered the family something they had been fighting for since his hospitalization, their larger fight is far from over.
They want him home.
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