A worker who survived the Hard Rock Hotel collapse in New Orleans and later described concerns about the project to investigators was deported to his native Honduras by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday morning, an ICE spokesman confirmed.

Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma, a Honduran national who'd worked in construction in the New Orleans area for the past 18 years, escaped from the Oct. 12 collapse despite falling several stories as the upper floors of the unfinished project caved in.

Ramirez was arrested by Border Patrol officers two days later in the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge in New Orleans East, where he was fishing while recovering from his injuries. He spent more than a month in privately run federal immigration detention facilities in central Louisiana before being deported.

Ramirez was taken to Honduras on a deportation flight from Alexandria International Airport, ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said. The airport, which is located near a number of ICE detention facilities, is a hub for ICE Air, the agency's charter deportation airline.

Ramirez's deportation came despite calls from immigration and workplace safety advocates, including the head of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, to release him while state and federal authorities investigate the cause of the collapse, which killed three workers and injured dozens more.

+3 Worker who survived New Orleans Hard Rock Hotel collapse faces likely deportation A Hispanic construction worker who was injured in last month's deadly collapse of the unfinished Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans faces deporta…

Ramirez lacked legal authorization to work in the U.S. and had been ordered deported by a federal immigration judge in 2016. He'd been attending scheduled check-in meetings with ICE agents in recent months as an attorney sought a stay of removal, an order that would indefinitely delay his deportation.

Cox said ICE denied his latest application for a stay on Oct. 3, nine days before the Hard Rock Hotel collapse.

Investigators with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is looking into the cause of the Hard Rock collapse, interviewed Ramirez at least twice this month at central Louisiana jails, according to his attorneys.

Activists and Ramirez's attorneys have also raised the possibility that his arrest came in retaliation for complaining about structural issues and unsafe conditions at the worksite as well as an interview from the scene of the disaster he gave to Jambalaya News, a local Spanish-language news outlet.

Cox called any claim that Ramirez's work at the Hard Rock site, complaints about conditions or media comments played a role in his arrest or deportation "patently false" and "wildly irresponsible," adding that "the suggestion that the events of Oct. 12 had anything to do with this are completely untrue."

Injured Hard Rock Hotel worker held by immigration authorities after speaking to media, attorneys say One of the workers injured in the deadly collapse Oct. 12 of the unfinished Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans has been detained for deportation b…

Ramirez had repeatedly raised concerns to his supervisors about issues with the Hard Rock project, according to a written complaint to the Department of Labor filed by Mary Yanik, an attorney with the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice who has been representing Ramirez.

Ramirez noticed "alarming" discrepancies in measurements on different sides of the building and voiced complaints about the structure not being level, according to the complaint, but was repeatedly told to keep working and implicitly threatened with being replaced on the job site. The day before the collapse, Ramirez noticed the building visibly moving several inches while taking measurements on the 14th floor, according to the complaint.

The complaint requested that OSHA investigate whether Ramirez's employers might have arranged his arrest, which Yanik wrote came just hours after he'd been told by his supervisor at the King Co. not to attend an early morning meeting for workers to discuss compensation for the collapse.

Officials at the King Co. didn't return messages seeking comment about Ramirez's employment with the firm, his complaints about working conditions and allegations of potential retribution.

Ava Dejoie, the head of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, a state agency that handles labor and employment issues, called on ICE to release Ramirez. Dejoie wrote to the head of ICE's New Orleans field office on Wednesday that Ramirez's detention was "hamper(ing) the ongoing investigations" into the deadly collapse and that those probes "will undoubtedly suffer" if Ramirez were deported.

"I know from our work that these investigations take time, including multiple interviews with worker and employer witnesses to fully uncover the facts," Dejoie wrote. "Mr. Ramirez Palma needs to be available for the full length of that investigation, which will likely take months or longer."

A memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Department of Labor and ICE allows the Department of Labor, which includes OSHA, to request that ICE parole or delay deportation proceedings against workers who have complained about unsafe work conditions or unfair labor practices.

It's unclear whether the Department of Labor made a request in Ramirez's case. Spokespeople for the agency didn't respond to multiple inquiries about Ramirez's complaint and whether the department had contacted ICE on his behalf.

Cox, the ICE spokesman, said he couldn't comment on whether ICE considered such a request.

Activists contend that ICE's move to hold Ramirez in detention effectively intimidated other undocumented workers from coming forward to help with the federal and state investigations into the Hard Rock collapse or to seek compensation for their injuries.

Ramirez's wife, Tania Bueso, said last week that she'd reached out to a number of her husband's former coworkers about coming forward but all said his looming deportation made it too risky for them to speak out.

Yanik's group, which advocates for immigrant workers, called Ramirez's deportation "a shocking dereliction of the federal government’s responsibility for worker safety that should concern every American" and said the decision would leave "every one of us less safe."

Cox acknowledged that the case had spread fear among undocumented immigrants but blamed that on activists and Ramirez's attorneys, whom Cox accused of "spreading misinformation that needlessly causes fear."

The circumstances surrounding Ramirez's arrest remain contested. A Border Patrol spokeswoman said an agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first approached Ramirez to check his fishing license and summoned Border Patrol officers because he didn't have a valid fishing license and could only produce Honduran identification.

But Ramirez's attorneys contend he possessed a valid fishing license and showed it to the Fish and Wildlife official, who nonetheless wrote him a ticket. In the complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Labor, Yanik wrote that Border Patrol officers arrived within a couple of minutes — something that "seemed very strange because they were in a very remote location with no offices or stations nearby" — and arrested him.

A spokesman with the Louisiana Department of Fish and Wildlife, which issues hunting and fishing licenses, said fishing license data isn't public information and that the agency couldn't public verify whether Ramirez had a valid license.

Ramirez decided to go fishing "to try to relax after the stress of all that had happened," Yanik wrote.

Ramirez was injured in the collapse and also suffers from severe eye pain caused by a tumor. He was scheduled to have surgery on the eye in early November but was forced to miss the appointment because of his arrest and detention.

Homero Lopez Jr., a New Orleans immigration attorney who worked on Ramirez's case, said the arrest caused significant setbacks in treating his eye problem and left the client in significant pain. Lopez said the pain left Ramirez wary of contesting his deportation in federal immigration courts if the fight would potentially leave him locked in detention for months.

It's unclear how many of the hundreds of workers on the Hard Rock construction project were immigrants without legal authorization to work in the United States, though organizers and attorneys involved in claims indicated the numbers could be substantial.

Representatives for the developers behind the project and construction firms hired to build it didn't respond to several inquiries about those issues from The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate over the past two weeks.