The construction worker who was last month detained by federal immigration officials after publicly disclosing that he had warned of unsafe conditions at an under-construction New Orleans hotel that later collapsed and killed three could be deported as early as Monday, his advocates tell NOLA.com.
Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma, who has lived in the U.S. for nearly two decades, was injured but survived the collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel in early October—“he survived a fall from the ninth floor to the sixth by swinging from a rope”—and soon after discussed his ordeal during a Spanish language interview. Within hours of that media appearance, Ramirez Palma was detained and thrown into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
An ICE spokesperson claimed that his detention had nothing to do with the interview, but ICE lies, and often. Officials are also seeking to deport him as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, is in the midst of an investigation into the collapse. “Mary Yanik, an attorney with the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, an advocacy group that’s been working on Ramirez's case, said OSHA investigators traveled to central Louisiana earlier this month to interview him about his work at the site and its collapse,” NOLA continued.
Tania Bueso, Delmer’s wife, said his detention has left other undocumented workers too afraid to come forward to share what they witnessed. “I am sure the Hispanic workers there don’t want to cooperate for the same reason,” she said. “They are scared the same thing that happened to Joel can happen to them.” Ramirez Palma is currently at a central Louisiana holding facility that serves as a last stop before deportation.
This wouldn’t be the first time federal immigration officials have pursued or agreed to the deportation of witnesses or whistleblowers. Last year, witnesses who contradicted a lie from Border Patrol officials that an unarmed indigenous woman had attacked an agent with “blunt objects” dropped their attempt to stay in the U.S., with the Guatemalan General Consul saying he believed they’d become “desperate, sitting behind bars.”
Immigration officials could have held off on deporting those witnesses, maybe even allowed them to be free while they worked with investigators. They didn’t. Immigration officials could certainly free Delmer while he works with investigators, or at least pause pursuing his deportation, but they haven’t. All of that would only help him, and negatively affect those putting workers in danger. “The timing is highly suspicious,” Yanik said, “and the circumstances of the arrest are extraordinarily suspicious.”