NEW YORK — Two worker advocacy groups are demanding that the federal government bring back a Minnesota construction worker who was deported to the Central African Republic, saying officials must comply with a federal judge’s order to facilitate his return.
The Workers Circle, a national secular Jewish social justice organization, and Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha, a worker-led Minnesota group known as CTUL, made the demand at a virtual news conference Nov. 6 on behalf of Kenis López González, a construction worker and business owner.
U.S. District Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan on Oct. 30 ordered federal immigration officials to take all reasonable steps within their control to facilitate López González’s return to Minnesota, including arranging travel and restoring the conditions of his prior immigration supervision, according to the groups. The order set deadlines and reporting requirements, including a Nov. 6 deadline to submit a request authorizing his return, and found he faced irreparable harm if he remained in the Central African Republic while his legal claims are pending, the groups said.
The federal government appealed the ruling Nov. 3 and asked for a stay of the order, according to the groups’ release.
López González, a Nicaraguan national who has lived in Minnesota since 2022, had previously been granted protection from deportation to Nicaragua because of the risk of torture, the groups said. According to his attorneys, he was then deported to the Central African Republic without a chance to challenge removal to that country, where he has no personal or family ties.
“I’m very scared. My life is at high risk here because currently there are political conflicts,” López González said, according to the release.
CTUL, of which López González is a member, lost contact with him and asked the Workers Circle for help, the groups said. The Workers Circle reached out to Yasmany Moreno, a small business owner and Cuban national who was also deported to the Central African Republic, and helped locate López González in the capital, Bangui.
“They didn’t give any of us opportunities to even tell our families,” Moreno said.
Lucho Gomez, CTUL’s director of campaign strategy, said, “Kenis was doing everything ‘the right way’ and still he was taken.”
Noelle Damico, director of social justice at the Workers Circle, said “the U.S. government does not have the right to lock up anyone indefinitely without answering to the court.”
López González is represented by attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, who previously represented Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador drew national attention. Sandoval-Moshenberg said the hardest part lies ahead: “The rubber is going to meet the road when we start talking about actually putting a charter plane in the air.”
The case is pending in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.
This report is based on information from the Workers Circle.
Source: Workers Circle
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