SAN FRANCISCO — Protesters and family of Miguel Lopez, a longtime Livermore resident deported to Mexico, on Thursday gathered outside a federal courthouse in San Francisco to rally to bring him back to the Tri-Valley.
At least two dozen people showed up to chant “Bring Miguel Home” and “Due Process For All,” outside the courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Ave., not far from where Lopez was detained this past summer during an immigration status hearing by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
For the past five months, Lopez has been separated from his family after the Department of Homeland Security deported him to Mexico in June, hours before a judge ordered the he be allowed to remain in the country.
Dozens of would-be audience members for Lopez’s case management conference in Judge Trina Thompson’s court were turned away by U.S. Marshals stationed on the 19th floor, who told them the courtroom would be empty and they’d all have to see it online. Instead, the family and their supporters crowded into the building’s second-floor cafeteria and watched the short hearing on their phones.
From his new home outside of Mexico City, Lopez was streaming his own hearing, and awaiting answers to whether he can rejoin his wife and children in Livermore.
“He’s just so ready to come home,” Lopez’s wife, Rosa, said before the hearing.
Rosa Lopez on Thursday was already thinking about the holiday season. The thought of having her husband away, she said, already put a damper on what normally would be a big neighborhood party for Thanksgiving, and the first Christmas he hasn’t spend with his family.
She was joined Thursday by her youngest son, Julian, a Granada High School senior in Livermore, her daughter, Stephanie, and Stephanie’s daughter, Illianna.
“I pray every day that my family can be together,” Rosa Lopez said.
Community members rally outside the U.S. Northern California Federal District Court on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025, in San Francisco, Calif. Miguel Lopez a Livermore resident was deported to Mexico earlier this year after government officials revoked his permanent residency status. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
After an Oct. 7 hearing, Judge Thompson decided not to dismiss Lopez’s case, against the request of federal prosecutors.
“These cases are stressful because they take a lot of time, they take a lot of work,” Saad Ahmad, Miguel Lopez’s lawyer, said before the hearing. “Oftentimes people like Miguel never get the help that they need in these cases because they’re complicated.”
Ahmad has previously argued in court that Lopez’s case is “very unique” and that his client has never had an opportunity to argue for permanent residency and that his rights were violated when he was whisked away without a proper hearing. According to Ahmad, an immigration judge granted him the right to stay in the U.S. in 2012, only to have another court reverse course in 2014.
“This is one of the first cases of its kind. There’s never been anything like this before,” Ahmad said.
The Lopez’s supporters included Chris Lima, a retired Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department firefighter who now lives in Castro Valley. Lima had never met Miguel Lopez, but said “I wanted to support the Lopez family and the institution of due process.”
Ward Kanowsky, an organizer for Indivisible Tri-Valley, a group which helped organized Thursday’s rally, told the crowd they were there because “Miguel is our neighbor.”
“We’re not going to forget Miguel,” Kanowsky said. “And we’re not going to give up this effort until we bring Miguel home.”
Laura Brown, a teacher at Granada High School in took a half-day off from work to be at the courthouse. She taught the Lopez’s eldest son, Angel.
“Miguel’s home is not in Mexico, a place he hasn’t lived for over 25 years,” Brown said. “His home is in the Tri-Valley.”
