An Iowa City woman who’s being held at a detention center in Louisiana faces deportation next week to Sierra Leone, a country where she has never lived.
Fatou Traore, an Ivory Coast native, was arrested by ICE last week on her way to work at a University of Iowa hospital.
A recent Supreme Court ruling re-permitted the Trump administration to deport people to third countries.
Her oldest son, Esoumaila, is pleading for her release.
“Fatou’s been in America for 20+ years,” he says. “She’s never committed any crimes, doesn’t have a criminal history at all. She has four kids — which is me, I’m 19, my little brother who’s 14. One is eight, and one is three.”
A rally was held Wednesday at First United Methodist Church in Iowa City where Heecheon Jeon is the pastor.
“Fatou is our neighbor,” Jeon says. “She is the mother of four children, beautiful children. She is a worker who has made her life here for more than 20 years.”
Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks wrote a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullins this week asking to stay Traore’s deportation and that all laws be respected.
(By Eliza Billingham, Iowa Public Radio)