Boston (AP)  -- A popular high school teacher in Boston who waged a long battle to stay in the United States has been deported to Ivory Coast.

Obain Attouoman, a math teacher at Fenway High School, was deported Wednesday.

Attouoman had fled Ivory Coast to escape political persecution in 1992 and later applied for asylum in the United States. But he missed a hearing with an immigration judge in 2001 and was ordered deported.

His fight against deportation gained support from his students and from top political leaders in the state, including U.S. Sens. Edward Kennedy and John Kerry.

The senators filed legislation that would have made him a resident. But the bill expired last year because Congress never acted on it.