Immigration officials recently deported a Livermore father the night before a U.S. District Court judge ordered that he be allowed to remain in the country while facing removal orders that, the judge said, were dripping with “inequities.”

The government’s swift removal of Miguel López, 46, on the evening of June 6 came just hours before U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson demanded federal authorities keep the decades-long Livermore resident in the country, court filings show. The judge, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, referenced the nation’s long history of inviting immigrants to its shores, as well as its more recent penchant to have “turned our back to this foundational principle — too often when it was needed most.”

“The facts of this case highlight one of those moments,” the judge wrote in her order demanding López not be removed. “The inequities seep from the pages, staining every word.”

The order came too late, López’s attorney said. By then, López was already in Tijuana, Mexico, where he called his wife — who hadn’t seen him since he was detained — on Saturday morning to inform her that he had been forcibly removed from the United States.

On Wednesday, López remained in a state of shock.

“I’m a little bit stressed because I’m not used to this,” López said in a phone interview from Mexico City. “I’m just trying to be strong because of my family.”

The father of three does not appear to fit the mold of the “bloodthirsty” criminals that President Donald Trump railed against on the campaign trail, amid vows to “launch the largest deportation program in American history.” Rather, Judge Thompson said, López had been trying to become a legal citizen for almost two decades, all the while working and paying taxes and having “strong ties to his community” and “no adverse criminal history.”

But López’s recent detainment appears to fit a theme in the Bay Area — ICE officials detaining migrants while they interact with the immigration system, be it at scheduled court hearings or during routine check-ins at ICE offices. Elsewhere in the state and nation, such as in Los Angeles, ICE agents have begun moving more frequently into communities to raid Home Depot stores and workplaces where migrants typically gather and work.

In López’s case, he was detained in recent weeks during a routine check-in at an ICE office in San Francisco. He could not recall being told why he was detained, and received few details about how long he’d be detained. He was then surprised to find he would be deported without signing any deportation papers.

López spent 10 days in detainment in the Kern County city of McFarland, where he was for the first day held in a cell with half a dozen other detainees sharing a long bench, one toilet and limited standing room. He was first fed bean burritos, he said, and given bottled water. Next, he was moved to a larger holding facility with dozens of other detainees, given a bunk bed to share, three daily meals and had to surrender his civilian clothes for a detainment uniform.

López said he was transferred to a facility in Bakersfield on Friday. Around midnight on Saturday morning, immigration officials loaded him and a handful of others into a van and drove them across the border to Tijuana, where he said he was handed over to Mexican immigration authorities.

López was given back his street clothes, cell phone and credit cards and given 2,000 pesos — the equivalent of about 100 U.S dollars, he said. There is temporary migrant housing near the immigration offices, but López’s family arranged someone to pick him up and take him to a hotel.

López crossed the U.S. border in the 1990s, when he was 18 years old, and quickly made Livermore his home. He filed paperwork for a green card in 2007, the judge’s restraining order said, but was swiftly denied because he had previously been sent back to Mexico while first trying to enter the U.S.

He has been fighting deportation orders ever since. In 2012, a judge tossed one such removal order. Yet the government appealed that decision, leaving López with an active deportation order in recent months. In early May, his attorney filed a new legal request to keep him in the country — one that Judge Thompson said the courts needed more time to resolve.

Often, migrants with active immigration cases are told to periodically check in to ICE offices, so that federal authorities can remain up to date on their status. Migrant advocates have increasingly suggested people consult with attorneys ahead of such check-ins.

ICE agents also appear to be targeting people attending hearings at immigration courthouses in San Francisco and Concord, often after government attorneys ask judges to dismiss migrants’ asylum cases. That includes four people detained after hearings in Concord on Tuesday, as well as at least four other people detained in May, said Sergio Jaime-Lopez, community defense coordinator with the Contra Cost Immigrant Rights Alliance. A similar number of people have been detained at the San Francisco courthouse.

On Thursday, López’s attorney was livid at his client’s deportation.

“Our whole argument is he never got his day in the court,” said the attorney, Saad Ahmad. “We are dealing with this kind of behavior because the government thinks they can get away with it.”

In a statement, ICE’s communications team said agents are working “on the streets every day,” and that “all aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and if found removable by final order, removed from the U.S.”

Attorneys fear that clients may decide not to show up for immigration hearings. Such a decision would be disastrous, they say, given that missed court dates lead to immediate deportation orders.

“Frankly, I believe that this is exactly what the government is trying to do right now — they’re trying to create this fear and chilling effect,” said Heliodoro Moreno, a senior immigration attorney who represents migrants as part of the Stand Together Contra Costa program.

Days before López was deported, at least 200 residents rallied in downtown Livermore demanding he be released back to his family.

After receiving his call from Mexico on Saturday, though, López’s wife flew to the country with the youngest of her three children to be with him.

The family’s plan is to try to get him settled in Mexico while they work with their lawyers back in the U.S. to figure out a way to bring him back. But life in Mexico has already proven difficult — Rosa said her husband’s brother was killed in the country a couple years ago, and his father and other brother have received violent threats from gangs in the area.

It all feels unfamiliar to a person who last lived in Mexico 29 years ago. Until being taken by ICE agents, López paid a mortgage on a house and worked as a welder and machinist for Wente Vineyards. It’s a job he’s held for nine years, and included health insurance for his family.

On Wednesday afternoon, Miguel López, his wife and their youngest child huddled together in a Mexico City church, praying for their family to receive better news.

“This is not my home,” López said. “I just think about going back home.”