DHS Starts Deportation of Woman Whose Loved One Died on Baltimore’s Key Bridge

Zoila Guerra Sandoval, 48, remembers making “frijoles blancos,” white beans, the day before the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore in 2024.

She had just spoken with José Mynor López about the usual things — like when their daughter should be picked up from school. Mynor López, her co-parent and friend, joked that she should bring him some of the beans; she told him to swing by her house. But he had to go work his overnight road maintenance shift.

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Mynor López’s body was the last to be found — two months later — out of the six construction workers who were killed that night. Their deaths put a spotlight on the use of immigrant and unauthorized labor in the construction industry, and prompted the Biden administration to try to provide immigration protections for about 30 people with immediate connections to the victims.

Now, under President Trump, those protections are being undone.

Rachel Girod, the immigration attorney representing Guerra Sandoval, says this administration has made every undocumented immigrant a priority for deportation.

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Mynor López was a part of a road maintenance crew filling potholes when the bridge collapsed after being hit by a cargo vessel. Guerra Sandoval met him in 2016 in the U.S., and they bonded over being from the same town in Guatemala. They never married, but maintained a close friendship, said Guerra Sandoval, in large part because they shared a 7-year-old U.S. citizen daughter.

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Guerra Sandoval is in the country without legal status. After the bridge collapse, officials with the Biden administration approached dozens of family members and loved ones of those who died and encouraged them to apply for programs that provide limited protection from deportation. The men who died in the collapse were originally from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

Guerra Sandoval’s daughter allowed her to qualify for that relief since she is now her sole caretaker.

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But just over two years since the collapse, some of those family members could now be at risk for deportation. Earlier this month, Guerra Sandoval received a letter from USCIS, notifying her that she was denied immigration relief and that she is now in removal proceedings and must appear in immigration court.

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Then she got a letter dated April 14 of this year from USCIS acknowledging that she applied for a program known as “parole in place,” which would give her permission to work and be in the U.S. The program was also used by those impacted by the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas and by those in the military who have undocumented relatives.

Girod, her lawyer, said this would not on its own give her a pathway to citizenship but could allow her daughter to someday sponsor her. It would also need to be periodically renewed.

The letter from USCIS also notes that the Secretary of Homeland Security has discretion to parole any applicant on a case-by-case basis. But in the same letter, the agency told her her application was denied because she is “presently in removal proceedings before an immigration judge or [has] an administratively final order of removal.”

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