Fatou Traore, a longtime Iowa City resident, has been deported to Sierra Leone, a country to which she has no connections. Traore was seized by two ICE agents on Sept. 24, when she arrived at her sister’s house at approximately 6:30 a.m. to drive her to work. The agents displayed no identification and did not identify themselves. One agent pulled Traore from her vehicle, and put her into an unmarked car.
Traore lived in Iowa City since immigrating from Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) more than two decades ago. She has no criminal record. Traore worked at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, as does her husband, Oumar Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea. The couple have raised their four sons, ranging in age from 19 to 3, in Iowa City. All of their sons are American citizens. The eldest, Esoumaila, graduated from City High last year and is now attending Kirkwood Community College. He has been acting as a spokesperson for the family.
At a rally in support of Traore and her family that attracted hundreds, Esoumaila explained that at first his family had no idea what had happened to his mother, just that she had been taken away by two men.
“I thought she was kidnapped, or taken by a bad person,” Esoumaila told the people who gathered at First United Methodist Church in downtown Iowa City on Sept. 30.
Later that day, he got a phone call from his mother. She explained she’d been arrested by ICE and had been told she was scheduled to be deported to Sierra Leone in a matter of days. Traore was held briefly in Cedar Rapids, where the ICE field office for the region is located. She was then moved to Hardin County Jail in Eldora, which has a contract with ICE to hold detainees, before being sent to Omaha, ICE’s regional headquarters, and then shipped to the Richwood Correctional Center, an ICE detention center located in Monroe, Louisiana, and managed by LaSalle Corrections, a private prison corporation. Richwood is notorious for its poor conditions, which have led to several lawsuits.
Esoumaila was also the one who broke the news of his mother’s deportation on Monday. According to statements released by Escucha Mi Voz Iowa (EMV) and the Immigrant Welcome Network of Johnson County (IWNJC), two nonprofits that have helped lead efforts to get Traore released and returned to her family, Esoumaila learned the deportation had happened when he received a call from his mother from Sierra Leone.
Traore did not have the chance to have an immigration judge review her motion to stay or request for a Credible Fear Screening before she put on the ICE flight to Sierra Leone.
“My mother asked for a chance to have her case heard,” Esoumaila said in a news release from EMV. “They deported her before a judge ruled and ignored her request for a fear interview.”
In 2011, an immigration judge granted Traore an order of withholding of removal. The order prevents an immigrant from being deported to their home country, because the immigrant has demonstrated they face a risk of death, injury or persecution if they are returned. The order also allows an immigrant to live and work legally in the U.S. Traore’s husband is covered by the same order of withholding of removal that she was.
Neither ICE nor the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided any statement about their reason for seizing Traore until Oct. 1, the day after the large rally in Iowa City. According to a written statement from ICE, Traore had used “a fake birth certificate and fake passport to enter the U.S. at an unknown time and location,” and an immigration judge had issued an order of final removal for her in 2011. Traore’s family says ICE’s allegations are false.
Traore’s family, friends and supporters began pressing for her release and return as soon as word of her seizure by ICE began to spread. In particular, they sought to have Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Rep. Ashley Hinson and both of Iowa’s U.S. senators intervene with DHS on Traore’s behalf.
Family members were able to meet staff members at Sen. Grassley’s and Sen. Ernst’s field offices on Oct. 2, when they and a few dozen supporters traveled to Davenport. On Oct. 7, they met with staff in Hinson’s field office, while supporters rallied outside the federal building in Cedar Rapids.
Responding a reporter’s question during his weekly teleconference with Iowa media on Oct. 6, Grassley said, “If there’s any possibility of helping in this case, we’ll be able to get the job done.”
It’s unclear if Grassley or any of the lawmakers, other than Miller-Meeks, actually contacted DHS on Traore’s behalf.
On Sept. 30, Miller-Meeks sent a letter to DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin, asking “for a stay of deportation for Fatou Traore, a constituent of mine and a valued member of the University of Iowa community.”
After briefly summarizing the facts of the case and pointing out that Traore has a valid withholding of removal order, Miller-Meeks wrote, “Deporting Fatou would deprive a young family of their mother and would violate the withholding of removal order, which allows Fatou to work and reside in the United States legally.”
Bishop Dennis Walsh of the Diocese of Davenport, which includes all the Roman Catholic parishes of southeastern Iowa, also wrote a letter to Sec. Mullin on Traore’s behalf, as did Bishop Amy Current of the Southeastern Iowa Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Bishop Kennetha Bigham-Tsai of the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
“Americans across this country have struggled with deportation policies that have swept up those with no criminal records who are in our country legally,” Bishop Bigham-Tsai wrote. “Such policies have proved destructive to the most vulnerable among us, to their families and communities. Now can be a time of healing. An act of justice and mercy for Ms. Traore would contribute to healing in the Iowa City community and beyond.”
Attorneys working on behalf of Traore had filed a motion to stay her deportation until her case could be heard by an immigration judge. The motion was still pending when ICE deported Traore on Monday.
According to Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Tracker, an ICE plane carrying detainees departed an airport in Louisiana on Monday at 5:30 p.m. and made stops in Dakar, Senegal, and Accra, Ghana, in addition to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. All three counties have agreements with the Trump administration to accept third-country deportees.
Before President Trump’s second term, deportations to third countries were extremely rare. Since Trump took office in January of last year, more than 40,000 people have been deported to countries that are not their home countries, and to which they often have little or no connection. It’s a tactic the administration has used to get around legal restrictions like withholding of removal orders or the reluctance of countries to accommodate the Trump administration’s massive increase in the number of deportations.
People deported by the Trump administration to third countries have faced dangerous conditions, including violence, incarceration and public health crises. They also face the possibility of deportation to their home countries, because orders of withholding of removal are not enforceable outside U.S. jurisdiction.
As of the end of June, “[t]he Trump administration has authorized or pledged at least $410 million to facilitate agreements with 31 countries, mostly in Africa and Latin America,” that are participating in its third-county deportation program, the Washington Post reported last month.
In a statement on Tuesday morning, EMV said, “A legal team in Sierra Leone, New York City and Iowa City is working to provide immediate assistance to Fatou, protect her safety and fight to secure her return.”
Speaking on behalf of his family, Esoumaila said, “We need our elected officials to act now to bring her back so she can have that chance and be home with her children.”
