Eastern Iowans rally around West Liberty soccer player detained by ICE

Pascual Pedro was 13 years old when he came to the United States from Guatemala with his dad in 2018. His father was detained and deported shortly after arriving in the country, when he presented himself for a regular check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And while Pascual also was marked for expedited removal, he was allowed to stay under supervised release.

Pascual moved in with his grandparents, who have been in the United States since 1991. The teenager spent his formative years in West Liberty, where he played soccer for West Liberty High School, including the team’s trip to the state tournament last year.

Before he graduated high school last year, Pascual worked with a lawyer to get a work permit, and has since been working at a small siding company run by his grandfather, Francisco Pedro.

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Despite having a clean record and a life built in Iowa, the threat of deportation hanging over Pascual’s head never went away. Since he’d been given a final order of deportation when he first arrived and was in the country conditionally, he didn’t have many options to seek citizenship or permanent residency, and those he did have, he didn’t know about.

Last Tuesday, he presented himself at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Cedar Rapids for a regular check-in. Pascual, now 20, had been checking in at the office on an annual basis since he arrived in the U.S., usually with his grandfather, who was his legal guardian until he reached adulthood. Francisco woke up feeling sick Tuesday, so Pascual got a ride to the check-in from some friends. He didn’t come out.

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“I didn’t go this time, but he went … to present himself before the immigration law, to fulfill it, and they detained him and didn’t let him leave,” Francisco told The Gazette in Spanish. “He doesn’t have any record, he doesn’t have anything bad about him. All he did was present himself to immigration enforcement, like they wanted, and he was taken.”

As he was being detained, Pascual was able to send a text message to his grandfather, letting him know what was happening. He also sent out a photo on Snapchat of his ankles cuffed together.

“My wife and I, as his grandparents, never thought this would happen. He’s a good kid, and we never expected this. He had his work permit … Everything was under control. We had no idea that anything would happen, because he didn’t have any problems,” Francisco said. “We were glad he was going to present himself with ICE, because that’s what the law requires. We were complying, and now we’re left up in the air. We don’t know what to think or say. We’re annoyed, and sad, because he didn’t have any issues. Everything was fine.”

Community members and friends rallied quickly, organizing a prayer vigil last Tuesday evening outside the Muscatine County Jail, where Pascual is being held. Despite the short notice of the event, more than 75 people attended, coming from West Liberty, Iowa City, Columbus Junction, Fredonia and other locations across Eastern Iowa, said Father Guillermo Treviño Jr., who organized the vigil.

Community members across Iowa also have organized through Escucha Mi Voz Iowa — an Iowa City-based nonprofit that works with immigrants. They’ve called and emailed ICE officials, asking them to release Pascual through their power of prosecutorial discretion.

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A GoFundMe page also has been organized to help Pascual’s family pay for legal expenses. As of Sunday, the page had raised more than $25,000.

Treviño is the parish priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church in West Liberty, and a close family friend who Pascual asked to be his sponsor when he was confirmed in the Catholic Church in 2022. He helped organize the vigil Tuesday, and was able to visit Pascual in the jail Wednesday evening as his religious leader.

“I got to pray with him. I’m a priest, so we did the sacrament of confession, as well. I just tried to tell him what was going on, that we’re praying for him,” Treviño said. “He came as a minor. He was a kid, and he’s still a kid really.”

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‘Will you please be merciful in this case?’

Pascual is one of more than 600 people who have been detained by ICE in Iowa so far this year. That’s more than were detained in all of 2024 in the state, according to ICE data released by the Deportation Data Project.

Escucha Mi Voz has helped get Pascual’s family connected to an immigration lawyer, Timothy Farmer, who said Pascual has a couple of options that could help him stay in the country.

The first is that he could apply for a withholding of removal, which would require him to complete a credible fear hearing in which he would have to convince an immigration officer that he has a credible reason to fear going back to Guatemala. If he fails the hearing, he could appeal it in immigration court, but Farmer said the immigration judges in Omaha, where Pascual’s case would be heard, are not usually amenable to withholding of removal cases.

According to data gathered by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, the three judges in Omaha have denied 85.8 percent, 91.1 percent, and 92.3 percent of all asylum cases that have come before them in the past. Asylum cases are similar to withholding of removal cases, but withholding of removal cases must meet a higher bar of evidence.

Pascual’s other option, and the one that Farmer said is likely the approach he’s going to take, is to submit a plea to ICE for a stay of removal. A stay of removal doesn’t involve the immigration court and can be granted by immigration officers.

“It would be entirely an application to ICE to ask them to, basically, have mercy on this kid, and say, ‘Look, he’s a great kid, been a great leader and contributed a lot to his community. He has no criminal record, etc. Can you please not deport him, even though, yes, you have the power to do so? Will you please be merciful in this case?’” Farmer said.

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Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com