AFSCME members are advocating for the release and return of an AFSCME sister from Iowa who had been working in the U.S. legally before she was arrested by ICE officers and deported to a country she has never set foot in.  

Fatou Traore was on her way to work at the University of Iowa on September 24 when two unmarked vehicles surrounded her. Two men in plain clothes who did not identify themselves forced Traore out of her car and took her away in handcuffs. Traore’s sister, who witnessed the event, said it felt like a kidnapping. 

Traore, a resident of Iowa City, was a custodian at the University of Iowa, where she worked in the children’s hospital and was represented by Local 12 (AFSCME Iowa Council 61). Originally from the Ivory Coast, she was deported on October 13 to Sierra Leone, a country she’s never been to. Now she is in danger of being sent from Sierra Leone to the Ivory Coast, a country where an immigration judge already found she faced danger.  

She left behind a husband – also a custodian at a University of Iowa hospital – and four U.S. citizen children ranging in age from 3 years to 19 years whose lives have been upended. 

To help secure his mom’s release and return home, Traore’s eldest son set up a GoFundMe page. 

AFSCME President Patrick Moran condemned Traore’s illegal third country deportation. 

“Fatou Traore is a public service worker who cleans the children’s hospital rooms where young Iowans heal so they can build a bright future. She and her husband, also a hospital custodian and a part of AFSCME, are raising four U.S. citizen sons in Iowa City. She was working here legally, serving her community. Yet ICE deported her to Sierra Leone, a country she had never set foot in, without due process – and now she is in danger of being sent from there back to the Ivory Coast, the very country where an immigration judge found she could not be deported 15 years ago,” AFSCME President Patrick Moran said.  

“AFSCME stands with Fatou and her family. We call that she not be transferred to a country where it has already been legally established she faces danger, and that she be returned to the United States and accorded the due process of law she was denied. Fatou is a public service worker, a mother and a member of our community. Bring her home to her children,” Moran added.  

AFSCME members are advocating that Traore be released and returned to her family in Iowa. Please help by contributing what you can.