From its earliest days, President Donald Trump’s bigoted crackdown on those in the United States illegally gave up any pretense of focusing on truly bad actors like the violent criminals and drug runners the Obama administration deported in record number. Instead, the Trump administration took pains to round up even those peaceful undocumented immigrants whose lives here served as inspiration to their communities.

The latest example in Colorado came just in time to ruin Christmas for the family of Melecio Andazola Morales. His is the national story of a man headed to meet with immigration officials in belief he was to be granted U.S. residency, who, once at the meeting, found himself removed from his family and detained.

Last week, without first notifying his attorney, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials sent him to Mexico.