2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee fuel door won't close

The latch on my fuel door housing is stuck inside the housing and the fuel door has nothing to latch onto when I push the fuel door and try to close it. I’ve attached a picture of my existing fuel door housing and a picture of the Mopar fuel door housing (part 68045460AD). On the picture of my housing you can see the opening where the latch is supposed to stick out but as you can see there is no latch there. I can see it when I look inside the opening and I’ve tried to grab it with a pair of needle nose pliers but no luck.

Does anyone know how to get the latch unstuck?

I don’t fully understand the mechanism by which the latch is activated when the button on the dash is pushed. I’m assuming an electric wire runs along the frame on the bottom and then over the wheel well and plugs into the actuator which I suppose is a solenoid. The cable may be just an emergency cable that you pull from the inside of the Jeep when the fuel door isn’t opening. There is a molded plastic inset on the driver’s side in the rear of the Jeep on the inside and I pried it out and pulled on the cable that was exposed and didn’t get any reaction that I could see. But the cable doesn’t pull all the way out. It feels attached at the other end.

Could it be that the solenoid is stuck for some reason?

Thanks,

David