By the time Pascual Pedro Pedro’s grandfather began speaking about how his grandson had been unexpectedly seized by ICE last week and deported to Guatemala without a hearing, there were almost 200 people gathered on the sidewalk in front of 201 W 2nd St in downtown Davenport. More than a dozen were across the street.
“We’re here, not because we want to be here,” Francisco Pedro said, speaking through an interpreter. “We’re here because of what happened to my family last week.”
The building at the corner of W 2nd and Main Street houses offices of Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks. The people gathered there on Thursday afternoon demanded their elected officials take action to return the 20-year-old Pedro to his home in West Liberty.
Pascual Pedro Pedro came to the United States seven years ago with his father. Because they entered the country without the necessary paperwork, Pedro’s father was immediately deported, and the 13-year-old was granted supervised release so he could live with his grandparents, who have been in the U.S. for nearly 30 years. According to the terms of his release, Pedro needed to check in at the ICE field office in Cedar Rapids once a year.
“Last week he did that, just like every year, and he never came back home,” his grandfather said.
ICE agents seized Pedro when he arrived at the office on July 2. He was sent to Muscatine County Jail as an ICE prisoner, then quickly transferred to Pine Prairie, the notorious ICE detention facility in Louisiana. His family lost contact with him on Saturday, July 5, and were unable to get ICE officials to explain what was happening. They didn’t hear from him again until Monday when he called them from Guatemala.
Pedro had been deported before an attorney could even file a stay of removal petition for him at ICE’s regional headquarters in Omaha. That process had been delayed when the ICE office shut down for the 4th of July holiday.
Pascual Pedro Pedro has no criminal record and no history of anti-social behavior. He was living with his grandparents until last week, and his main interests growing up in West Liberty were getting an education and playing soccer. Pedro was a good student and standout on the soccer team at West Liberty High. When he graduated last last year, he started working full time at his grandfather’s siding company, after securing a work permit with the help of an attorney.
“In my family, we have done everything that has been required,” Francisco Pedro told the crowd on Thursday.
Pedro’s family has been trying to get an explanation from ICE about why they seized him with no warning, why they marked him for expedited removal from the country and why Pedro did not get a hearing before an immigration judge before he was deported. The answer to all those questions was the same, Francisco Pedro said.
“And the answer was, ‘We don’t know,’” he said. “They don’t know, no one knows.”
As soon as Pascual was seized, people who knew him in West Liberty began speaking out about his good character. They included Father Guillermo Treviño of West Liberty’s St. Joseph Catholic Church. Father Treviño knows Pedro well — he’s not just his parish priest, he’s also his godfather.
Treviño accompanied Pedro’s grandparents to Davenport on Thursday. They arrived with about 75 supporters on buses that had been chartered by Escucha Mi Voz Iowa, a nonprofit that advocates for and assists immigrants. Escucha Mi Voz has been working with the Pedro family and the community in West Liberty, and has organized vigils and protests on Pascual’s behalf since he was taken by ICE. By the time the two buses arrived in Davenport, over 100 people were waiting for them.
The chanting got loud sometimes and the crowd was energetic in its denunciation of what happened to Pedro, but the protest in front W 201 2nd St was peaceful and orderly. A large, black Davenport Police Department pickup truck slowly drove past several times, and a DPD SUV was parked next to the protest site, but the only contact DPD officers had with the crowd was when they asked them to please leave space for pedestrians to walk past.
That was in keeping with the tone of Francisco Pedro’s remarks.
“We know he’s not the first, we know he’s not the last,” he said about ICE seizing his grandson. “We’re not against the rules, we’re with the rules, we follow the rules. But we’re against what’s going on.”
Pedro’s grandmother Lucia spoke briefly after her husband finished.
“We just want Pascual back home,” she said. “He should be at home with his family.”
After some remarks by Father Treviño and Alejandra Escobar, the Escucha Mi Voz organizer who had translated for Francisco and Lucia, Francisco Pedro, Treviño and Escobar went up to Sen. Ernst’s office on the 8th floor of the building for a scheduled meeting with aides from Ernst’s, Grassley’s and Miller-Meeks’ offices.
Most of the crowd followed them inside. Some went to the 8th floor, and waited in the hallway outside Ernst’s office. The majority went to the 7th floor, where Miller-Meeks’ and Grassley’s offices are located.
Miller-Meeks’ office was closed.
“Congresswoman Miller-Meeks’ Staff Is Out Attending Congressional Business [sic],” a paper sign taped to the inside of a window said. “We Are Sorry to Have Missed You. If You Would Like To Leave A Message, Please Call 563-232-0930.” [Capitalization choices in the original.]
There was a staffer behind a plexiglass window over a counter in Grassley’s office, and he offered people comment forms if they wanted to leave a message for the senator. Dozens filled out forms, calling for Grassley to do something to help Pedro return to West Liberty, and to make immigration enforcement more humane and just. Some also left comments about Grassley’s support for the budget reconciliation bill passed last week, which the House of Representatives named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBA) in deference to President Trump. While the people leaving comments mostly mentioned the bill’s cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other essential services, OBBA also affects ICE and the enforcement of immigration law.
OBBA includes $170 billion for immigration and border-related issues, including $45 billion for construction of new detention facilities for ICE. The American Immigration Council notes that amount “represents a 265 percent annual budget increase to ICE’s current detention budget. It is a 62 percent larger budget than the entire federal prison system and could result in daily detention of at least 116,000 non-citizens.”
Another $14.4 billion will go to ICE for enforcement and removal actions, along with additional $8 billion for hiring new agents and retention of current ones. Overall, OBBA gives ICE more funding than the FBI, DEA, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons combined. At the same time, the bill caps the number of judges to hear immigration judges at 800, even though there currently exists a record backlog of cases in the immigration court system.
Miller-Meeks, Grassley and Ernst all voted for OBBA, and praised President Trump when he signed it into law on July 4.
Grassley was asked about Pascual Pedro Pedro during a conference call with Iowa reporters earlier this week.
“His advocates have been in contact with my office,” the senator said. “I don’t know that he has been, and obviously we would need a privacy report, a statement from him, to get involved in his case.”
Escucha Mi Voz told Little Village on Thursday the necessary paperwork has been filed with Grassley’s office.
“It’s been publicly reported that he was issued a lawful, expedited removal several years ago,” Grassley said during the conference call with reporters. “That removal order was final and he’s since been staying in the U.S. temporarily under certain conditions that I’m not sure that I can define.”
Iowa’s senior senator has greater seniority than any other member of the Senate, is its president pro tempore and the chair of the Judiciary Committee, but told the reporters he doesn’t have any real power to do anything on Pedro’s behalf.
“I’ll continue to pass along Iowans’ questions and concerns to the administration, if that’s what they want me to do,” he said. “But I make law, I don’t enforce law. I can advocate for people, but I’ll have to go through the administrative branch of government.”
On Thursday, Sen. Ernst issued a written statement about Pedro’s case, or rather in response to media inquiries about his case. The statement did not mention Pedro, his family or West Liberty.
“Our nation has laws for a reason, and we can’t turn a blind eye to the essential role they play in keeping Iowans safe,” the statement reads. “Biden’s failure to enforce the law allowed deadly fentanyl and illegal immigrants to pour across our open borders and into communities across Iowa. I am thankful President Trump continues to lead the way in upholding the law to protect Americans.”
The meeting between Francisco Pedro, Father Treviño, Alejandra Escobar and three staffers — one from each of the elected officials offices — lasted about 30 minutes. Speaking to Little Village after it finished, Treviño sounded optimistic.
“We delivered our message, we presented what we wanted to,” he said. “It was pretty civil.”
The staffers said they weren’t able to speak on behalf of the political leaders they work for, and that all they could do was report their conversation to Miller-Meeks’, Grassley’s and Ernst’s offices in Washington D.C.
“We did feel heard,” Treviño said. “They said the next step is to go to D.C., and I said if I have to, I’ll go next week.”
He said he is going to ask for one-on-one meetings with Miller-Meeks, Grassley and Ernst.
Asked if he thought any progress was being made in bringing Pedro back to his home in Iowa, Treviño said, “I think there is.”
“We have power behind us. Look at all the people that were here.”
As the Davenport police SUV that had been parked next to the protest drove away, Treviño nodded in its direction.
“The police were even here,” he said. “So that tells me that we had an impact, because so many people came out to support Pascual.”
