DAVENPORT — Supporters of a 20-year-old West LibertyMan, who was deported to Guatemala over the July 4th weekend, protested outside of Iowa’s Congressional delegation’s offices in Davenport on Thursday afternoon, calling on the delegation to work to bring him back to the U.S.

More than 200 local activists, community members, faith leaders, and friends and family of Pascual Pedro, packed the sidewalk and hallways outside the congressional offices holding signs that read “no ICE in Iowa” and chanting “bring him back.” 

A small group of organizers met with congressional staff and called for the return of Pascual Pedro. He was detained during an annual check-in with Cedar Rapids’ ICE office on July 1 and deported to Guatemala over the July 4 weekend. 

“For the last seven years, he’s been doing it. He’s been showing up because they believe in the right thing,” Francisco Pedro, Pascual’s grandfather, said in Spanish to the crowd. “But last week, he did that, like every year, and he just never came back home.”

Pascual Pedro arrived in the U.S. when he was 13 years old during President Donald Trump’s first term in office and has remained in the U.S. ever since, according to Iowa City-based immigration advocacy organization Escucha Mi Voz. When he first arrived in the U.S., he was issued a deportation order and was allowed to remain in the U.S., and even obtain a work permit, under supervised release. 

“I’m in pain — we as a family are in pain,” Francisco Pedro said about his grandson’s deportation. “We know he’s not the first, we know he’s not the last. We know one person who did this — this administration, and we want answers, and we want justice as a family.” 

Francisco Pedro told the crowd that Pascual Pedro was a high school soccer star, worked in construction, graduated from high school, and coached a youth soccer team. 

Joseline Mateo, of West Liberty, said she has known Pascual Pedro for years and considered him “like a brother.” She was shocked when she heard that Pascual Pedro had been detained, and more shocked when he was removed so quickly. 

“The timeline was just crazy,” Mateo said. “I feel like they were just trying to get him out, to not make all these people make more noise, more protest, more of this.”

Pascual Pedro, who had no criminal record, was removed under an expedited timeline with no hearing. He was deported less than a week after he was detained, and local advocates are calling on Iowa’s congressional delegation to “bring him back.” 

“Just like how they deported him and everything, they also have the power to bring him back,” Father Guillermo Treviño said to the crowd. “No, it’s not impossible. Look how quickly they did everything in a week.”

Pascual Pedro is one of thousands who have been deported since Trump took office, after he promised mass deportations on the campaign trail. 

Iowa’s Congressional delegation has echoed Trump’s calls for mass deportations and approved the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” in early July, which appropriated billions in new spending to ICE and other Immigration enforcement efforts. It was one of the handful of budgetary increases included in the massive bill, along with an increase in military spending. 

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was in charge of the spending increase on immigration enforcement and helped orchestrate the billions in increased spending. 

Treviño, Francisco Pedro, and an organizer with Escucha Mi Voz met with congressional staff from Grassley’s office, Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst’s office, and Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks on Thursday afternoon. 

Grassley, in a statement Thursday, said that his staff listened to comments and concerns from protestors, but the administration of laws is the purview of the administrative branch and Pascual Pedro was given a valid order of removal. 

“That removal order was final, and in the years following, Pedro was staying in the U.S. temporarily under certain conditions,” Grassley said in a statement to The Daily Iowan. “Congress passes laws and the executive branch administers them, including the immigration enforcement measures taken in Pedro’s case.”

Ernst has advocated for mass deportations and an increase in border defense spending. In a statement to the DI on Thursday, Ernst said that the Biden administration’s “failure to enforce the law allowed deadly fentanyl and illegal immigrants to pour across our open borders and into communities across Iowa.”

“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,” Ernst said in the statement. “I am thankful President Trump continues to lead the way in upholding the law to protect Americans.”

However, Pascual Pedro was allowed to remain in the U.S. legally and has no known criminal record. 

Despite no promise to bring Pascual Pedro back to the U.S., Escucha Mi Voz organizer Alejandra Escobar said that they must keep calling their offices, and that delivering the message is a victory. 

Escobar said that mass deportations will hurt communities across Iowa and tear families apart. 

“This bill is doing this to our communities, to immigrants,” Escobar said. “It’s funneling billions of dollars into ICE, into a system that’s tearing our families apart. We’re going to demand that Republican legislators bring Pascual back to put an end to this barbarism. This is not who we are as a nation, as Iowans, as people.”