Zoila Guerra Sandoval, the mother of a 7-year-old U.S. citizen whose father was among the six workers killed in the 2024 collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, has been placed in removal proceedings after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied her request for immigration relief, according to NPR. A letter dated April 14, 2026, informed her of the denial, and an initial immigration court hearing is scheduled for July.
Zoila Guerra Sandoval says she last spoke with José Mynor López the day before the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore in March 2024, discussing routine plans about their daughter.
López was one of six road and construction workers killed when the container ship Dali struck the bridge, sending crews working overnight into the water. His body was the last recovered, roughly two months after the collapse, according to NPR and contemporaneous reporting from other outlets.
The deaths—of workers originally from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico—drew renewed attention to the role of immigrant and unauthorized labor in construction and infrastructure work, NPR reported.
In the weeks after the collapse, then-President Joe Biden met with some of the victims’ families and described the men as “hard-working, strong, and selfless,” saying in May 2024 that “Most were immigrants but all were Marylanders,” according to a transcript of Biden’s remarks.
NPR reported that Biden administration officials encouraged dozens of relatives and loved ones of the victims to apply for forms of temporary immigration relief, and that roughly 30 people with immediate connections to the victims were considered eligible. A former Biden-era U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) official told NPR that the agency expedited requests tied to the bridge collapse on a case-by-case basis under existing policies meant for emergencies.
That approach has shifted under President Donald Trump, NPR reported. Guerra Sandoval—48, a Guatemalan national who has lived in the United States for about two decades and has no criminal record, according to her attorney—provided fingerprints as part of the process in December. She later received a USCIS letter dated April 14, 2026, acknowledging she had applied for a form of discretionary relief known as “parole in place,” which can provide temporary permission to live and work in the United States.
The same USCIS letter informed her that the application was denied. The denial stated she was in removal proceedings—something both she and her lawyer said they had not been formally notified of before receiving the USCIS decision, NPR reported.
Her attorney, Rachel Girod, told NPR she went to Baltimore Immigration Court to obtain a “notice to appear” and found it had been filed April 10, days before the USCIS denial letter was issued. Girod said her client had “stepped out of the shadows” believing the government would follow through on assurances tied to the bridge-collapse relief effort.
NPR reported that the Trump administration has pursued a goal of deporting one million people a year and has aligned immigration agencies more closely with enforcement priorities, including slowing processing for some applications and dismantling certain earlier protections.
Girod told NPR she represents five clients connected to victims of the bridge collapse and that some applicants initially received temporary protection in 2024 and early 2025. Ama Frimpong of We Are CASA, an immigrant advocacy group, told NPR that approvals earlier in the process gave way to delays and more recent denials.
Guerra Sandoval’s initial hearing is scheduled for July, NPR reported. In immigration court, she may seek other forms of relief, including protections available to some parents of U.S. citizen children under 21. But NPR reported that tougher detention policies for people who entered the country without legal status raise the risk that she could be detained as her case proceeds.
