Then Mensah dashed toward the flames again and reached the fourth floor in a desperate effort to save a fifth person. This brave soul from what Trump would describe as an s-hole country, the kind of person Trump was insulting, never made it out. Mensah’s body was found high in the building’s wreckage.

A few days ago, the Army posthumously awarded Mensah the Soldier’s Medal, its highest award for heroism outside of combat, and New York State awarded him its Medal for Valor. The citation on the state medal reads: “His courageous and selfless act in the face of unimaginable conditions are consistent with the highest traditions of uniformed service.”

Who better embodies our nation’s values? A politician with a history of racist comments who took five deferments to escape military duty in the Vietnam War, including one for heel spurs? Or a heroic Ghanaian immigrant and soldier who dies in a fire while rescuing others?

Most of us recognize that immigration is complex and that we cannot throw open our borders, but also that newcomers enrich us. That is true not only of Norwegians but also of penniless refugees from impoverished, war-torn countries, such as my father — a Polish-Armenian fleeing Eastern Europe, whose first purchase in the U.S. was a Sunday New York Times to teach himself English.

Trump once showed a willingness to be big-hearted to immigrants who break the rules: He married Melania, a Slovenian who came to the U.S. on a visitor visa and then earned money as a model before she was authorized to work, according to an investigation by The Associated Press.

If only Trump could show a similar compassion to unauthorized immigrants who don’t look like Melania. In particular, his decision to send Salvadorans back, in the face of murderous gang violence in that country, and his rejection of a bipartisan deal to protect DACA “Dreamers,” simply seem cruel.