Rodney Taylor stood outside on a balmy late afternoon recently in Atlanta’s Candler Park neighborhood, relishing his first root beer float in a year and a half.

Released on 1 May from Georgia’s Stewart Detention Center, the Liberia-born barber had been detained since 15 February of last year, after ICE agents with guns drawn dragged him from his car in front of his house, while his two youngest children, now eight and six, looked on from the back seat. Now he was all smiles, surrounded by family and supporters.

He had just spoken at his second public event in two weeks, a fundraiser for his family. During his detention, his wife, Mildred Danis-Taylor, lost her job, and the family lost one of their two cars. With Mildred nearby, the two spoke exclusively to the Guardian about his first few weeks of freedom and their future.

Rodney, 47, is a green-card applicant and double amputee with prosthetic legs. He was brought by his mother to the US from Liberia on a medical visa as a young child. ICE detained him due to a burglary conviction from when he was a teenager that Georgia pardoned him for in 2010, according to his attorney, Sarah Owings, who shared paperwork from his case.

He lacks three fingers on his right hand and has high blood pressure. His health deteriorated significantly in ICE detention, including the development of painful bone spurs in his back.

Still, despite a habeas corpus petition, multiple protests, letters from state elected officials and, on 4 March, Georgia US representative Lucy McBath holding up a letter in a Capitol Hill hearing room detailing Stewart’s dangerous conditions – signed by McBath and 20 fellow lawmakers and citing the Guardian’s reporting – ICE kept Rodney locked up.

That ended this month, when there was unexpected laughter on his arrival home in Loganville, Georgia, where he was greeted by a Christmas tree.

Mildred had decided to leave the symbol of the holiday standing in the living room “until he comes home”. So when Rodney entered the house, the first photo they took was in front of the tree. They sent it to a cousin in Texas. He called, upset: “You mean you’ve been home since Christmas and you didn’t tell me?” They FaceTimed him, laughing.

Mildred also began receiving calls from “numbers we’ve never seen”, Rodney said. They were from former fellow detainees, calling from countries where they’d been deported: India, Nigeria, Indonesia.

They had seen the news that Rodney was released. “I can’t believe you made it!” they said.

“It was amazing that I could speak to them on the outside,” Rodney said. “But I also felt bad, because they got deported. It was bittersweet.”

The Guardian reported on Mildred’s transformation from a healthcare worker to an advocate and activist – not only on behalf of her husband, but other detainees and their loved ones.

Rodney has gone through his own transformation. “When I saw how they were treating people [in Stewart], I was like: ‘This is too much. This system, they rigged it, just for money,’” he told a small crowd at the fundraiser. “They’re playing with people’s lives.”

Another change: having spent most of his life in the US, he never saw himself as an immigrant. Leading an active life cutting hair at a barber shop and helping care for a large family, he also never saw himself as disabled. “Now it’s different,” he said. “I learned to see myself that way.”

“People see me as an inspiration,” he added. “I don’t want to take that away from them.”

As if on cue, a young man talking to his cellphone camera came up to Rodney on the sidewalk, telling his social media followers: “Rodney Taylor’s a barber. He’s a double amputee, y’all – and they locked him up! He didn’t do nothin’! But don’t worry because guess what – he’s out!’”

He turned the camera to Rodney, who flashed a peace sign. “What was it like in there?” the young man asked. “It was hell,” Rodney said. The would-be influencer continued on his way.

Rodney and Mildred would like to open a barber shop and community center where they can hold events on issues from immigration reform to healthcare. On the two occasions the couple have appeared in public since Rodney’s release, people have urged Mildred to apply her organizing skills and passion to politics, and run for office.

Rodney supports the idea: “I tell her: ‘You gotta run for city council, start small, show ’em what you’re made of.’”

Meanwhile, Rodney says, he’s still adjusting to being free. He eats out a lot – three times at Waffle House. He takes two naps a day, lacks energy. He’s spending this week at medical appointments, including getting his prosthetic legs properly calibrated – something that never happened while he was detained, worsening his health.

Their youngest children “cling to him” at home, Mildred said. The wife of another detainee told her to expect them to have trauma responses, especially since they were in the car when ICE agents took their father.

Rodney has taken their three older children out to dinner, one by one, Mildred said. They range in age from 16 to 21. “He’s like their therapist,” she says.

Mildred worries about him being detained again, particularly when she travels to the many events where she has become a fixture, drawing attention to the conditions faced by ICE detainees, particularly those with disabilities and serious medical conditions.

“It’s still surreal,” she said. “I don’t want him to go back … It’s harder for me to go out of town.”

Owings, Rodney’s attorney, said his release resulted from multiple pressures: “Every time long-term detention cases have resulted in releases, it’s due to a multi-dimensional effort – advocates, family, media, lawyers, Congress.”

Rodney has to check in with ICE on an app every week and the agency visits his house monthly. His immigration status remains unresolved, as he has an appeal lodged before the board of immigration appeals, part of the Department of Justice.

Until that happens, he feels the responsibility, together with Mildred, to keep speaking up.

“I’ve been given a lot, so a lot is required of me,” Rodney said at his fundraiser. “Until ICE is abolished.”