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Chants to Resurrect Tuesday afternoon, as members of the Eastern Iowa community marched toward the U.S. District Court building in Cedar Rapids to protest the detention of Noel Lopez of Muscatine and the deportation of Pascual Pedro of West Liberty earlier this month, the words “Pascual” and “Let Noel go” reverberated through the heat.
Pedro was deported earlier this month, while Lopez is still being held at Muscatine County Jail after being arrested in Washington County last month for a traffic stop that occurred a year prior.
According to a press release about the demonstration, the demonstrators, who included relatives of Pascual Pedro and Noel Lopez as well as clergy and religious leaders from a number of nearby congregations, brought food cans as a symbolic protest against Medicaid and food assistance cuts and immigration enforcement spending increases made as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was passed this month.
Escucha Mi Voz, an Iowa City charity that coordinated the demonstration, said that the food, which was carried up to the federal building by marching demonstrators, will be given to nearby food pantries.
“The government is on a racist campaign to round up immigrants in our country, and they are funding this horror, it is a living hell for folks,” Ryan Downing, a pastor at Faith United Church of Christ in Iowa City, said at the rally. “They are funding all of this by slashing federal food assistance and other parts of the social safety net, which is causing more suffering for the poor and the underprivileged.”
Before, during, and after the march toward the federal courthouse, Downing was one of several religious leaders who spoke. Security guards met protesters at the door and informed them that only five people could enter the building to speak with staffers in the offices of Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, as well as Representative Ashley Hinson, with whom the demonstrators had requested to meet.
No one left the building when a few protestors and organizers, including Iowa House Representative Angel Ramirez, entered and invited staffers to come outside to talk to the demonstrators. According to Ramirez, she spoke with a Grassley employee and the building’s security, who informed her that only five individuals could enter the office and that the staff didn’t feel secure going outside.
Even while they acknowledged that we were peaceful, they were also giving the impression that we were acting dangerously, and I would like to refute that since everyone was demonstrating peacefully. According to Ramirez, everyone present is a constituent of the individuals holding that office.
A representative for Hinson’s office informed The Gazette that the day before the demonstration, Escucha Mi Voz organizers sent an email to her office offering to set up a meeting, but she never heard back.
According to a spokesman who sent an email to The Gazette, Rep. Hinson is in favor of deporting illegal aliens and will keep collaborating with President Donald Trump to secure the border.
According to a representative for Grassley’s office, his employees consented to meet with Pascual and Noel’s relatives.
According to the spokeswoman, Senator Grassley’s Cedar Rapids staff quickly agreed to meet with Iowans who were interested in the cases involving Pascual Pedro and Noel Lopez on Tuesday afternoon. Grassley’s employees asked the family members to meet with them in person inside the office to discuss their concerns after hundreds of people gathered outside the building. There were just two advocates who visited the office to talk to the senator’s staff. As always, Grassley encourages all Iowans to voice their thoughts and worries.
A request for comment regarding the protest was not answered by Ernst’s offices on Tuesday.
Prior to the march, Pascual Pedro and Noel Lopez’s relatives also discussed their relatives’ encounters with the immigration system.
Before his attorney could request a stay of removal, Pascual was deported less than a week after being arrested on July 1 during his yearly check-in visit with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Cedar Rapids. After attending the state tournament with the high school soccer team, Pascual, 20, who has been a resident of West Liberty since he was 13, graduated from West Liberty High School last year.
Francisco Pedro, Pascual’s grandfather, spoke during the demonstration and expressed his perplexity over his grandson’s deportation.
Pascual had done nothing wrong in this instance. He arrived and studied as a child. He received his high school diploma from West Liberty last year. He enjoyed working after that. Francisco Pedro stated, in Spanish, that he enjoyed doing good things. The legislation mandated that he appear at the Cedar Rapids immigration office annually. We were following the rules. There was no justification. They took him into custody. I’ll reiterate that I don’t know the cause. What’s the motivation?
Leslie Lopez, Noel Lopez’s sister, also spoke, highlighting the injustice of her brother’s incarceration.
Last month, Noel, 23, was taken into custody in Washington County on a single charge of possessing marijuana, a restricted narcotic. The charge was related to a traffic stop that took place on June 2, 2024, more than a year prior, during which police discovered marijuana in a vehicle that Noel had been riding in. Mason Pounsavan, 26, of Mount Pleasant, who was driving the vehicle, was also accused of possessing a controlled substance.
It’s incredibly unjust, in my opinion. With tears in her eyes, Leslie spoke. To be honest, I think I’m furious. It is incorrect. He wasn’t to blame. Although nobody is flawless, I don’t believe that anyone should be expelled from our nation for something as trivial as dating the wrong person at the wrong time.
The Gazette was unable to confirm whether Noel has an immigration case pending or what his immigration status is because the lawyer his family hired was unavailable on Tuesday. Noel’s mother, Marcelus De la Cruz Santos, stated that she heard from Noel that he might be facing immigration enforcement due to the drug charge.
Additionally, De la Cruz Santos stated that she has spoken with Pounsavan, who informed her that he told police that all of the marijuana found in the car belonged to him. She also expressed her confusion about why her son was accused and why the charges were brought so long after the original traffic encounter.
His pal owned everything that was in the vehicle. De la Cruz Santos said in Spanish that he had nothing to do with it. Why they came hunting for him a year later is something we don’t comprehend. He received no citation. He was not issued a ticket. I find it strange that the cops released them.
Nathan Repp, the county attorney for Washington, told The Gazette via email on Tuesday that he will look into the reason behind the lengthy charge process.
According to Repp, testing usually doesn’t take that long, but our local law enforcement usually waits to file drug charges until the DCI Lab returns the test results.
Escucha Mi Voz has a number of other events scheduled for the upcoming weeks, such as a press conference via Zoom on Wednesday where Pascual Pedro will share his personal story and a scheduled protective accompaniment to accompany a number of immigrant families to their appointments with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on August 5.
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