Danilo Lopez faces deportation from Vermont to Mexico on July 5. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the rest of the congressional delegation and Vermont’s governor have made the case to federal immigration authorizes that the Vermont farm worker should be allowed to stay. The 23-year-old Lopez is one of about 1,500 migrants who Vermont dairy farmers consider essential to their survival because they fill jobs milking cows that no one else will take. He came to the attention of immigration authorities in 2011 after a car he was riding in was pulled over by a state trooper who notified federal authorities. Since then, Lopez worked with a migrant worker advocacy group that persuaded the state to change its policy on traffic stops  and to pass a law letting migrant workers get drivers’ licenses.  “I respectfully request that you look into this matter at your earliest convenience,” Sanders said in a letter sent on Monday to John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Read the letter here.