A Bay Area man facing possible deportation to a country where he’s never lived received some long-awaited help Friday from Gov. Jerry Brown.

Daniel Maher, 44, is one of 56 ex-convicts — including five with deportation orders — pardoned by Brown as part of an annual pre-Easter clemency program. Brown also commuted 14 sentences.

Maher “has shown that since his release from custody, he has lived an honest and upright life (and) exhibited good moral character,” Brown wrote in his pardon message.

Brown’s pardons of those facing deportation won’t guarantee that they will not be removed from the United States, especially as the Trump administration has escalated efforts to deport undocumented immigrants even without criminal backgrounds. But the governor’s action eliminates the legal rationale for doing so.

Maher was born in Macau, a Portuguese colony off the coast of China that was returned to China in 1999. He came to the U.S. at age 3 as an authorized immigrant.

In 1994, he committed an armed robbery at a San Jose auto parts store and was convicted of felony kidnapping, robbery and firearms charges. He lost his legal status and would have been deported to China, except that no deportation agreement existed with the country. He served five years in state prison, and another year in federal immigration custody.

After his release, Maher worked at recycling jobs and in 2005 joined the nonprofit Ecology Center in Berkeley, where he is recycling manager. He also works with at-risk youth. In 2015, the deportation order caught up with him, and he has been fighting it ever since.

Maher could not be reached for comment. But in 2016, he co-wrote an opinion piece for the San Francisco Examiner with another immigrant that said, “We are both passionately committed to building a better world and helping young people avoid the kinds of mistakes we made.”

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Others facing possible deportation and pardoned Friday were Sergio Mena, who completed three years’ probation in 2006 for possessing drugs for sale; Francisco Acevedo Alaniz, who served five months in 1999 for vehicle theft; Phann Pheach, who completed a six-month sentence in 2007 for possessing drugs for sale and obstructing an officer; and Sokha Chhan, who at 13 fled the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, lived as a legal U.S. resident for 35 years, and completed a year in jail and three years probation in 2005 for misdemeanor inflicting corporal injury and threatening a crime.

Brown praised the five for turning their lives around.