Mt. Pleasant landscaper Noel Lopez De La Cruz facing deportation. Here’s how you can help

The kidnapping goon squad gutting our workforce keeps rolling to more cities across the US. Its newest target is Charlotte, North Carolina, and soon ICE and Border Patrol will bring their terror to New Orleans.

But deportations of immigrant workers continue to happen everywhere—including in Iowa.

The latest: Noel Lopez De La Cruz, a 24-year-old landscaper from Mount Pleasant who was brought to Iowa at 2 years old. He has no criminal record.

Noel Lopez De La Cruz, right, with his fiancee, Brianna Thornton. (Publicly available on Go Fund Me)

Escucha Mi Voz, an immigrant rights group in Iowa City, says De La Cruz has been behind bars for months awaiting deportation. His lawyers have filed a federal lawsuit arguing for his release, but said his deportation now seems “imminent.”

“My heart is broken,” said Mercedes De La Cruz, Noel’s mother. “Noel has lived in Iowa since he was two years old. This is the only home he knows. He grew up here, went to school here, works here, and he has never been in trouble. I don’t understand how a country that watched my son grow up can now throw him away like this. They are tearing our family apart.”

Brianna Thornton, De La Cruz’s fiancee, plans to follow her betrothed to Mexico, where he is being deported. A fundraiser for the couple’s relocation and legal expenses—including beginning the process of a marriage-based immigration case that the family hopes will allow De La Cruz to one day return—is about $1,000 shy of its goal. You can find that here.

“This is the reality of Trump’s mass deportations: ICE is ripping a young man who grew up in our schools and works in our neighborhoods out of the only home he has ever known and dumping him in a country he can’t even remember,” said Escucha Mi Voz organizer Alejandra Escobar. “That is not justice or public safety; it is state violence against hardworking families, and we condemn it completely.”

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who is not running for reelection, supports the federal government’s actions: She recently extended the Iowa National Guard’s mission assisting ICE with administrative work through September 2026.

Escucha, along with labor union AFSCME Local 183, is calling on local governments and school districts to protect workers where the state and federal government won’t: by passing Fourth Amendment protections enshrining due process and workplace safety into local law. So far, activists say those entities are “passing the buck.”

“Local elected leaders are fiddling while families are torn apart,” said Escucha Mi Voz member Getsy Hernandez. “We don’t need more photo ops or listening sessions. We need local governments to grow a backbone and pass real 4th Amendment protections now.”

Next up: The Johnson County Board of Supervisors mentions the “32 requests” they’ve gotten to pass Fourth Amendment protections on this morning’s agenda.

Are you or your family at risk of deportation? Email me.