Deportation proceedings begin for mother tied to Key Bridge collapse victim

A 7-year-old U.S. citizen who lost her father in the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse is now watching that disaster spill into immigration court. Federal officials have moved forward with deportation proceedings against Zoila Guerra Sandoval, the 48-year-old mother of the child and the former partner of José Mynor López, one of the six construction workers killed when the bridge fell into the Patapsco River.

Guerra Sandoval and López had met in the United States in 2016 after both came from the same town in Guatemala, and they were co-parenting their daughter when the collapse shattered the family. In the hours before the disaster, the two had talked about ordinary life, including picking up their daughter from school. López’s body was the last of the six workers recovered, about two months after the collapse, deepening the loss for a family already forced to navigate grief, a child’s future, and now the threat of removal from the country.

The collapse came in the early hours of March 26, 2024, when the cargo vessel Dali struck a support column and the bridge came down in about 20 seconds. The six men who died were Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, José Mynor López, Miguel Luna, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, and Carlos Hernández. Two other people fell into the water and survived. The workers had been doing overnight pothole repair under a Maryland Transportation Authority contract, and the crash reverberated far beyond the bridge itself. The Dali was a 947-foot ship carrying 4,680 containers, and the Port of Baltimore handled $80.8 billion in foreign cargo value in 2023, underscoring how much was at stake when the bridge failed.

In the weeks after the disaster, a memorial service in Baltimore drew a few hundred mourners and included a six-minute silence for the six dead workers. The Biden administration responded with a whole-of-government recovery effort, $60 million in immediate emergency relief funds, and promises to help rebuild the bridge and support the city. It also explored temporary humanitarian protections for roughly 30 people with immediate ties to the victims, a recognition that the collapse had created not just a transportation crisis but a human one.

Now that protection appears to be unraveling. Guerra Sandoval’s attorney, Rachel Girod, said her applications were denied, and CASA said it will fight the decision. Girod said the administration is treating undocumented immigrants as deportation priorities. The shift leaves Guerra Sandoval and her daughter exposed to the legal aftermath of a tragedy that already took their husband and father, showing how the consequences of the Key Bridge collapse continue to reach into Baltimore homes long after the wreckage was cleared.