Foundry Worker Who Came To U.S. Seeking Asylum Now Faces Deportation
Missed hearing triggers deportation process for Manitowoc worker.
Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry CEO Sachin Shivaram, left, stands with Josue Rodriguez outside the company’s plant in Manitowoc. Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry
Josue Rodriguez came to the United States three years ago, seeking asylum from violence in Nicaragua. After making his way to Wisconsin, Rodriguez got a job at a sausage factory in Green Bay, where he worked for about a year before getting a job at a foundry.
Roughly a year ago, Sachin Shivaram, CEO of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry in Manitowoc, recruited Rodriguez to work for his company.
“He was able to weld and all sorts of things, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God. This is a person we definitely want in our company,’” Shivaram recalled.
Rodriguez took the job and Shivaram says he’s been reliable and “works very hard.”
Rodriguez told WPR — translated from Spanish by Shivaram — that he liked living in Wisconsin and he’s been grateful for the opportunities he’s had. He is newly married to a Wisconsinite and felt hopeful for his future.
“I feel like somebody here,” said Rodriguez.
Now Rodriguez’s life in America may be coming to an end. He learned a couple weeks ago that the federal government has issued a deportation order against him.
Rodriguez believes the order was issued because he missed a court hearing in his asylum case. Rodriguez said he appeared in court for a scheduled hearing, but was told to come back the following day. When he couldn’t find transportation from Manitowoc to Milwaukee, he missed the rescheduled hearing.
Newly formed family faces separation
Rodriguez learned of the order when he and his wife, Nikala, were meeting with an immigration attorney to see if he could gain permanent legal status as a result of their marriage. They were married about three months ago.
Nikala, a Manitowoc resident, declined to share her last name. The two rent a home together, where they’re raising Nikala’s 9-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter.
“He took them under his wing,” she said. “They look at him like that father figure.”
At the meeting, the immigration attorney looked up Rodriguez’s number and notified the couple of the deportation order.
Nikala said Rodriguez’s asylum claim has been revoked due to the deportation order. She said he could leave the country and seek a green card through marriage, but that could take three to five years.
“(I’m) working two jobs, and the possibility of him not being sure if he’s coming back puts me in a financial strait because he’s also the main breadwinner in the household,” Nikala said.
The family isn’t sure what they’ll do if Rodriguez is deported.
Rodriguez’s case comes amid federal immigration crackdown
Rodriguez’s story reflects a broader conflict playing out nationally in the wake of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, Shivaram said.
“We need a mechanism for people to come into this country and do jobs like Josue is doing for our company,” he said. “We have him here today, literally sitting in front of me, and someone wants to kick him out to prove a political point.”
President Donald Trump has said he would lead the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history, targeting more than 10 million undocumented immigrants living in the country.
The recently passed GOP budget reconciliation bill gives the Department of Homeland Security $45 billion to detain immigrant adults and families through September 2029, more than quadrupling Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s annual detention budget, according to the National Immigration Law Center.
The Trump administration has framed the deportation and detention effort as targeting violent criminals. But 65 percent of the people ICE detained between October 2024 and mid-June had no criminal convictions, and more than 93 percent were never convicted of any violent offenses, according to a report from the libertarian Cato Institute.
In an Aug. 1 interview with WPR, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, said he believes the Trump administration has secured the southern U.S. border and cut the amount of fentanyl coming into the country. He objected to the Cato Institute’s findings.
“When we had 10 million people coming in illegally over the last four years, they were in full denial that there was a problem,” Tiffany said. “There was clearly a problem, and it is being fixed now.”
Data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University showed 70.3 percent of people held in ICE detention as of Aug. 24 had no criminal convictions.
More workers aging out of Wisconsin’s workforce
A new report from the labor-focused High Road Strategy Center think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said the Trump administration’s “aggressive anti-immigrant and deportation campaign” could undermine the country’s economic strength. The report said immigration changes could “constrain economic growth even more than the high cost of tariffs.”
High Road economist Laura Dresser said more people are aging out of Wisconsin’s labor force than are coming into it.
“The answer for that is to think about immigration,” she said. “How do you make the state attractive to people who want to come work and live and build their families and their lives here? That’s always the question, I think, if you’re hoping to grow your economy.”
Shivaram said the biggest challenge facing the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry is a shortage of workers. About two-thirds of the company’s new hires are immigrants.
“Anyone who says, ‘Oh, just hire local people to do the jobs,’ clearly has not tried to,” he said. “We have a very compelling pay package, and we are not able to find people.”
Wisconsin foundry worker who came to the US seeking asylum now faces deportation was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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