SAN FRANCISCO — Sixty people rallied outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building here March 17 to demand the U.S. government return Miguel Lopez to the United States. Lopez was deported to Mexico June 7, 2025, just hours before U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson issued a restraining order barring his expulsion from the country.
Lopez is a welder who worked at Wente Winery in Livermore for nine years.
Now 47, he was brought to the U.S. by his parents when he was 18, and he had been here since. He married Rosa Lopez, a U.S. citizen, 25 years ago, and is the father of their three children and a grandfather of one. Julian, his oldest son, is a senior at Granada High School, where he is a member of the football team.
Miguel Lopez has been fighting for legal status since 2001, attending immigration hearings several times a year. He was on his way to one such hearing when he was arrested and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Granada teachers Betsy Wilson and Laura Bertoli Brown, who have taught two of the Lopez children, spoke at the March 17 rally. They’ve helped organize protests and fundraising seeking Lopez’s return. Further speakers included Rosa Lopez, who read a moving statement by Julian on how hard the last year has been; Ward Kanowsky, an activist in Indivisible Tri-Valley; and Margaret Trowe, Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor of California.
After the protest, participants, including more than a dozen high school friends of Julian, packed the courtroom, where Judge Thompson heard arguments by Miguel Lopez’s attorney, Saad Ahmad, on why he should be returned to the U.S. and allowed to resume his effort to regain permanent residence. Ahmad explained Miguel Lopez was never given due process, the right to a hearing to contest his deportation. And he was never given the opportunity to argue before the Board of Immigration Appeals that his permanent residency should not be stripped away. If the judge rules in his favor, he will be returned and granted a hearing before the immigration appeals board.
The protest and hearing were covered by several local media outlets, including on the front page of the East Bay Times.