José Yugar-Cruz, the Bolivian immigrant targeted by federal officials for deportation to the Democratic Republic of Congo, does not know when he would be deported, members of Escucha Mi Voz Iowa said Tuesday.
Motions aimed at winning his release offer hope that he will not be deported at all. However, he remains in jail while all of the legal work takes place.
“This government is interfering with my process. They want to deport me to the Congo,” Yugar-Cruz said in a recorded message that was translated into English and played Tuesday for more than 100 supporters at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office.
“And the truth is, I’m fighting, trying to fight, so that I can stay here in this country.”
The Iowa City-based Catholic organization working with the Catholic Worker House in Iowa City led a rally at ICE’s Cedar Rapids office on Yugar-Cruz’s behalf before another round of immigrant Iowans began regular Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-ins.
Escucha Mi Voz and a Minnesota group called Conversations With Friends have helped Yugar-Cruz with his case. Yugar-Cruz stayed at the Catholic Worker House for a brief period between being released from the Muscatine County Jail in January and being taken back into custody by immigration officials for deportation.
His story is a model of the Trump administration’s inhumane immigration policy of deportation first, applied especially hard to immigrants coming from south of the U.S. border. Judges have determined that his life is in danger in Bolivia, where he refused to help drug traffickers at the small store he ran.
The opposite of a hardened criminal, to be certain.
“I came to this country to ask for protection, and I won protection against torture,” Yugar-Cruz said in the recorded message.
“I defended myself in my asylum process, and ICE detained me for a long time — a year and a half.”
Yugar-Cruz crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona in July 2024 and immediately surrendered to law enforcement officials so that he could seek asylum. He won an immigration judge’s order to hold off on his removal in December 2024 because, the judge said, he had been subjected to torture in Bolivia and likely would be tortured if sent back.
Immigration officials responded by keeping Yugar-Cruz in custody — unlawfully, a U.S. District Court judge determined — until a judge ordered his release from the Muscatine County Jail in January 2026. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security responded by saying he would be deported to Congo under one of President Donald Trump’s big agreements — a deal for Congo to take immigrants the administration was removing from the United States.
Homeland Security’s ICE took Yugar-Cruz into custody again on April 8, 2026, when he went to what he thought would be a routine ICE check-in in Cedar Rapids. He won a temporary stay of deportation until a federal judge ruled in late April that U.S. Supreme Court rulings in similar cases in other states tied the judge’s hands, forcing the judge to lift the stay. U.S. District Court judge cited a similar case in Massachusetts.
Yugar-Cruz has been fighting for his freedom from the Linn County Detention Center since ICE took him into custody again.
“I only came to ask for protection,” he said in the recording about trying to escape to the United States, his words interpreted into English.
“You’re seeing a lot of injustice here. You’re sending several people to the Republic of Congo. And the truth is, they’re including me on this flight … I’m afraid to go to this country.”
Perhaps he will not have to go. We shall see what the next step is for him but the journey is not going to get easier, especially given that people in the Trump administration feed off of the misery people like Yugar-Cruz endure in this country when doing something so right in their native country that they need refuge.
This column was first published on Lyle Muller’s Substack page and is reprinted here through the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.
Please consider subscribing to the collaborative and its member writers to support their work.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com.
