LIVERMORE — Congressman Eric Swalwell this week decried the Trump administration’s recent decision to deport a Livermore father and winery worker, mere hours before a U.S. District Court judge said he should remain in the country.
Vowing that “we’re not going to forget him,” Swalwell slammed the early June deportation of Miguel López as a sign of President Donald Trump breaking his promise to only target migrants with criminal histories, as part of a nationwide immigration crackdown. Local federal, state and county lawmakers joined Swalwell in framing the deportation as further proof that Trump’s administration appears unwilling to allow migrants due process.
López is “exactly who we want in our community,” said Swalwell, a Democrat who resides in Livermore. “He has a job, has a family, is connected culturally, and the fact that he was removed is just wrong. We were told violent individuals were being removed — and that’s not the case with Miguel.”
California Assemblywoman Liz Ortega — who was born in Mexico and represents a district centered in Hayward — similarly berated the Trump administration.
“From the moment President Trump started to campaign around immigration, he continued to say this was about criminals, and he was only going to deport criminals,” Ortega said. “But the reality is that this has never been about criminals. This has always been about racially profiling our community.”
López, who has lived in Livermore for the past 29 years, was deported late in the evening of June 6, hours before U.S.
The López family, from left, Stephanie López, Rosa López, Miguel López, Julian López, and Angel López. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Miguel Lopez on May 27, when he showed up to a government building in San Francisco as part of a routine process toward his citizenship. López was born in Mexico and has lived in California for 29 years, including several years in Livermore. (Photo courtesy López family)
District Court Judge Trina Thompson issued a temporary restraining order demanding that federal authorities keep him in the country. In her ruling, the judge noted how López’s case appeared to drip with “inequities,” particularly given how the country has recently “turned its back” on its history of welcoming migrants.
The order was signed June 7, a day after the 46-year-old’s attorney requested it. By that time, federal authorities had already taken López to Tijuana, Mexico.
The timing is troubling, said Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, whose district borders Livermore and includes the U.S. immigration courthouse in Concord.
“It sounds like they should have waited until the judge made their decision,” DeSaulnier said. “But under this administration, they are being encouraged to be aggressive to the point of violating people’s due process, and the law.”
“In a case like this, where there’s no immediate danger to the public, I don’t understand it,” he added.
López’s deportation comes as the Trump administration doubles down on its immigration crackdown by once again tracking down migrants working at restaurants, farms and hotels, following a several-day pause of that practice over the weekend. Migrant advocates say Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have yet to begin such raids in the Bay Area — instead, preferring to detain migrants visiting immigration courthouses and ICE offices.
In recent weeks, several migrants have been detained while attending court hearings at courthouses in Concord and San Francisco, said Sergio Jaime-Lopez, community defense coordinator with the Contra Cost Immigrant Rights Alliance. Several others — including López — have been detained during routine check-ins that migrants must make at ICE’s office in San Francisco. In López’s case, he was whisked away to the Kern County city of McFarland, where he spent 10 days in detention before being transferred to a facility in Bakersfield on June 6. Later that night, authorities took him across the border.
Livid, Democratic lawmakers and immigration attorneys say Trump is not only bypassing migrants’ rights to due process, but he also is not following his promises when it comes to deportations.
“What they care about is meeting a quota and picking up Black and brown people and trying to have them disappear,” California Assemblymember Mia Bonta, D-Alameda, said. “That for me is not following the rule of law.”
Bonta, who is married to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, emphasized that López should be able to return to the U.S. and have his day in court. His case, she said, shows how Trump’s agenda has “more to do with hate and bigotry than actually following the rule of law.”
For Swalwell, a longtime Tri-Valley resident, López’s case “is very personal.” He got married at Wente Winery, where López held a job as a welder and machinist for the past nine years.
“We stand ready to do anything else that we can do to help,” Swalwell said.
The options appear limited.
López’s attorney, Saad Ahmad, said he plans to continue to fight in U.S. District Court for the government to reinstate Lopez’s green card — a process that could take, at a minimum, several months. Ahmad claims his client was denied due process by this country’s immigration system.
“Our constitution allows due process for everyone in the country, especially someone who was granted permanent resident status at some point,” Ahmad said Thursday. No hearing date has been set while each side prepares to file its legal arguments in the case.
Currently, the government is working on a motion to dismiss this case, due in July. Ahmad has until August to reply and then he says López could potentially have a day in court as early as September, though the process could take longer, he added.
Swalwell said there’s little he can do, unless Democrats retake one or both chambers of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
“We have to be in the majority to have leverage to write laws to reverse these inhumanities,” Swalwell said. “Everything changes when we’re in the majority.”
For Miguel López and his wife, Rosa López, the sudden breakup of their family has left them reeling.
This week, the two parents worried that their youngest son will not have his father on the sidelines for his senior year of football for Granada High School. The three of them spent much of their time over the past week inside a room of a Mexico City house, pacing with anxiety and unsure of what will happen to their family.
Immigration officials confiscated his California driver’s license and U.S. passport, he said. Without valid identification from either the U.S. or Mexico, he’s having trouble finding a place to rent or a job that will take him on.
Hundreds of community and family members take part in a rally in support of Miguel Lopez at the Livermorium Plaza in Livermore, Calif., on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. Lopez, a native of Mexico, a Livermore resident, and father of three, was detained by immigration officials when he showed up for a citizenship hearing in San Francisco last week. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
In Livermore, where a couple hundred rallied earlier this month to “Bring Miguel Home,” friends and supporters have set up a GoFundMe account to help. As of Wednesday, more than $45,000 was raised. But the family breadwinner and father of three — who owns a Livermore home and worked side jobs on top of his Wente Vineyards gig — says bills are stacking up.
All the money in the world, he said, cannot bring him what he wants most: returning home. Soon, his wife and son, who flew to Mexico to be by his side, will fly back to the Bay Area.
“I wish they would tell me to come back tomorrow,” said López said in an interview Tuesday. Until then, he added, “I’ll stay by myself, and I’m worried about them and how they’re going to do over there.”
Kyle Martin is a reporter covering Fremont and the Tri-Valley area. Call or text him 408-920-5043, or email him at [email protected].