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A Livermore man deported to Mexico last year saw his immigration case terminated this month in the U.S. District Court per the statute of limitations.
Miguel Lopez, husband and father of three, was removed from the country last year after appearing at a courthouse in San Francisco for a routine immigration check-in.
Having lived in the U.S. for over 27 years, Lopez worked at a winery in Livermore and had been attempting to gain legal residency for nearly two decades, according to a legal order by District Judge Trina Thompson.
Since his detainment nearly a year ago, Lopez has remained in Mexico, according to his attorney Saad Ahmad. In his absence, members of the local community have organized displays of support calling for his return home.
Most recently, Lopez filed a legal claim in May of 2025 alleging that a decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals in 2014 — overturning a previous approval of his application for cancellation of removal — was an abuse of discretion under the Administrative Procedures Act and violated his right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.
Thompson determined April 3 that Lopez had filed late under the six-year statute of limitations, denying his motion for summary judgement in favor of defendants former U.S. attorney general Pamela Bondi et al.
Ahmad plans to challenge the decision in appellate court based on circumstances that he said suspended the filing timeline.
“Instead of guiding this Court on a steady path towards the clear equities of this case, current immigration law and the applicable statute of limitations leave (Lopez) without relief from any error (Bondi et al.) may have committed in whisking him out of the United States,” Thompson said in the order.
“We came very close to success,” Ahmad told Livermore Vine. “We believe that if this claim had not been dismissed on jurisdictional ground, we would have prevailed.”
Lopez was first apprehended by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in October of 1996, according to the April order. Shortly after, he was deported from the U.S. by order of an immigration judge.
He reentered the U.S. without inspection — records are inconsistent regarding when he reentered — and he applied for an adjustment in status during February of 2007 with the Citizenship & Immigration Services. His application was denied because “he had made a false claim to U.S. citizenship in attempting to enter the United States years earlier,” according to the order.
During September of 2007, the DHS initiated removal proceedings against Lopez, but he applied for cancellation of the removal.
DHS filed for a motion to dismiss the proceedings, as the served Notice to Appear was “improvidently issued” because Lopez had been previously removed from the U.S. pursuant to a valid removal order, DHS argued.
An immigration judge during November of 2012 granted Lopez’s application to cancel the removal order as a “nonpermanent resident noncitizen,” the order states.
During 2014, DHS challenged the immigration judge’s decision at the BIA, which sustained DHS’s appeal and dismissed Lopez’s removal proceedings.
Two years later, an officer of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement served Lopez with a notice of intent/decision to reinstate prior order from 1996. The reinstatement was finalized during November of 2018.
One month later, Lopez appealed the BIA decision with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The court determined that it lacked jurisdiction because the BIA’s decision was not a removal order.
Further, the Supreme Court denied a request in May of 2023 by Lopez for review of the Ninth Circuit judgment.
Two years later during May of 2025, Lopez filed an instant action against Bondi and then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Lopez alleged that the BIA decision to terminate his removal proceedings in 2014 violated the Administrative Procedures Act and his right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.
According to Ahmad, Lopez did not receive judicial review of the BIA’s decision, as he was entitled to.
The following month, Lopez filed a motion for temporary restraining order to stay his deportation to Mexico, pending a resolution to the case on merit.
Thompson granted the stay June 7, 2025. But three days later, the court was informed that Lopez had already been deported to Mexico, according to the order.
“My life has changed completely,” Rosa Lopez said of time without her husband.
His absence is visible at family dinners, outings and their son’s senior year of high school, she explained to Livermore Vine on Monday (April 13).
“We’re still praying. Hopefully, there’s still that opportunity for him to come home,” Rosa Lopez said.
On April 3, the main issue at hand was whether Lopez’s civil action against the U.S. was filed within six years of alleged injury.
As recounted in the order, Lopez argued that the cause of civil action occurred July 19, 2022 when the Ninth Circuit dismissed his petition for review.
Lopez argued that the operative complaint was timely because he appealed the BIA decision in the Ninth Circuit December 6, 2018. The Ninth Circuit should have transferred the action to a district court, he is stated as arguing.
However, Noem argued that the injury took place October 23, 2014 when the BIA terminated Lopez’s proceedings — an argument Thompson agreed with.
According to the order, Lopez’s claim for judicial review under the Administrative Procedures Act is time-barred because he filed his complaint with the claim May 8, 2025.
Thompson found that there were no circumstances for Lopez to be exempt from the statute of limitations.
“Current law persuaded (Lopez) to channel his claims through a bureaucratic labyrinth which deprives so many Americans-to-be of a prompt remedy when agencies inevitably make mistakes,” Thompson wrote. “Such obstacles impose heavy burdens on all noncitizens seeking permanent status in this country.”
“Yet, misplaced foresight, delays, and unforeseen circumstances cost an entire family financial stability and will result in generational trauma,” she added.
“The Ninth Circuit will resolve this,” Ahmad said. “They will review the Administrative Procedures Act and see that there were exceptional circumstances that should have tolled the six year deadline.”
“We are not quitters. We’re going to continue to fight this,” Ahmad told Livermore Vine.
