Bring Pedro back to make his case

While campaigning for president, Donald Trump proposed mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, but his administration would focus on immigrants with criminal records.

Polls at the time showed voters liked the idea of deporting criminals. But after taking office, federal agents have been casting a much wider net, ensnaring undocumented immigrants with no criminal history. Even immigrants who came here legally have had their status erased and face deportation.

It also snared 20-year-old Pascual Pedro of West Liberty.

Pedro came to the U.S. when he was 13 with his father, who was deported. Pedro was adhering to legal requirements, including regular check-ins with immigration officials, in the hope of eventually getting a chance to become a permanent resident or citizen.

He was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when he showed up for a check-in in Cedar Rapids. Before an immigration attorney could file a request for a stay on Monday morning, Pedro was transferred to Louisiana and flown to Guatemala.

“I honestly think that’s part of the strategy: move so quick that people don’t have time to respond,” said Tim Farmer, the lawyer hired by Pedro’s family.

People in Pedro’s community are heartbroken, powerless and angry. Vigils have been held, with more scheduled. The community invested in Pedro’s success for several years by giving him access to education, etc. To simply, and without further examination, send him to Guatemala is a waste of that investment.

“This is a travesty, there was no due process, and our message is bring him back now,“ Father Guillermo Treviño Jr., the parish priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church in West Liberty and Pascual’s godfather, said in a statement.

This was not the type of deportation Trump had discussed on the campaign trail. Pedro has no criminal history. He’s working with a work permit, was a star on West Liberty High School’s soccer team and is a churchgoer. He is a productive member of his community.

The Trump administration has decided every undocumented immigrant, and some migrants with temporary legal standing, is a criminal. Agents, often with no identification and wearing masks, have grabbed immigrants off sidewalks, from federal immigration courts and their workplaces and homes.

Most Americans want a secure border. But what’s happening in our nation looks more like an autocratic machine targeting immigrants as names on a list, not humans with families, jobs and a life disrupted. Without any discretion, Trump’s immigration army is only interested in arrest quotas.

And for what reason?

To make us safer is often the answer. But how secure do you feel in a country where leaders believe they can make people disappear with no concern for due process? No one should be comfortable with a system in which you are plucked off a street and within a week sent to a country where you may have no support network.

Pedro must be brought back to the United States to plead his case under the rule of law, which used to mean something in America.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com