Bishop Dennis Walsh of Davenport, Iowa, is joining a chorus of voices calling for the federal government to release an immigrant mother facing deportation as advocates argue that she is legally permitted to be in the country.

Walsh said in an Oct. 2 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin that Iowa City resident Fatou Traore has resided in that community for more than two decades and has been a legal resident since a 2011 withholding of removal order. A withholding of removal order bars deportation to a country where an immigration judge found the person would likely face persecution.

Davenport Letter

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested Traore on Sept. 24. The federal agency told the Cedar Rapids Gazette that she “admitted to using a fake birth certificate and fake passport” to enter the U.S.

Traore’s family has denied those allegations. Walsh, meanwhile, said in his letter that Traore “has raised her family [in Iowa], lived peacefully, and has no criminal history.”

Traore’s family has said the government is preparing to deport her to Sierra Leone, a country with which, Walsh said, “she has no connection and where violence and human rights violations remain serious concerns.”

The bishop said he was “deeply troubled” by the government’s actions, which he argued were proceeding “despite the absence of any lawful or humanitarian justification.”

“Proceeding with this deportation is [a] grave violation of [Traore’s] human dignity and the rights that are intrinsic to each one of us,” the bishop said. He urged the government to stay the deportation and allow Traore to return to her family.

Walsh in his entreaty joined several other religious and community leaders in Iowa in urging the government to hold off on the deportation. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is not the first time the leader of the Davenport Diocese had advocated on behalf of immigrants.

In 2020, then-Bishop Thomas Zinkula — now the Archbishop of Dubuque, Iowa — urged the government to release several Guatemalan immigrants from custody, citing the risks of COVID infection while in detainment.