(Radio Iowa) – A 20-year-old man from West Liberty who was arrested last week during his annual ICE check-in, has been deported to Guatemala. Pascual Pedro Pedro’s lawyer Timothy Farmer says he is now back in Guatemala after undergoing the expedited removal process. Farmer says he found out as he was delivering a request in Omaha this morning (Monday) seeking to keep Pedro Pedro in the country.

“If we didn’t have the holiday weekend, we might have been able to get the application filed on Friday of last week, but even that would have been very…it would have been real tough to get everything together that we did that quickly,” he says. Farmer says he just got involved in the case on Thursday, and the rapid process left him little time to do anything.

“You know, we would have had to file this application that day, which, you know, obviously we didn’t do. And I don’t think we even could have managed that. So, it’s unfortunate, but I know this is part of…this is the strategy, I think, to just deport people so quickly that they don’t have time to respond.”

Pedro Pedro’s family is demanding answers for his arrest and organizing protests across eastern Iowa.

(By James Kelley, Iowa Public Radio)