Syracuse, N.Y. -- Thursday morning, Lorenzo Ramos stepped off a plane in Guatemala City, a place he hadn't been in 15 years.

He had the clothes on his back, his passport, his wallet, some money, and a warning: Watch out for the gangs that are waiting.

"When you get of the plane, you're a walking target because they know you came from the U.S.," Melanie Ramos, Lorenzo's wife, said. She said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers warned her husband to be watchful of the gangs in Guatemala when they told him he was being deported.

Lorenzo Ramos fled that same violence 15 years ago when he came to the U.S. illegally. He had a business selling chickens in the market in Guatemala City. His brothers, who were already in the U.S., told him he needed to come, too, before he was hurt or killed.

Lorenzo Ramos was deported to Guatemala Thursday. He owns a landscaping business here with 500 customers. He owns a home and pays taxes. His wife, son and stepson are all U.S. citizens.

His story offers a window into the changed fate of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. under the Trump administration. Under President Obama, people like Ramos, who worked and had families but were here illegally, were often allowed to stay. ICE officers targeted people who committed crimes. But an executive order by Trump just days after he took office widened the net of immigration enforcement to target all immigrants who entered the country illegally.

In Upstate New York, there are an estimated 200,000 undocumented immigrants living and working, and increasingly finding themselves targeted by immigration enforcement. Arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers hit a three-year high in 2017. In Upstate New York, they increased 27 percent during that time, according to data from the Pew Foundation.

Ramos' story is also one that shows the trust some undocumented immigrants put in a complicated and closed system. Ramos was picked up by immigration authorities in 2009. He applied for asylum and was denied. He was ordered deported, but then officials gave him a "stay of deportation" every year that allowed him to continue living in Syracuse and building his business. Last year, he was even given a temporary social security number, which made his family believe that his plight to stay here legally had a good chance.

He had done everything immigration officials told him to do, his wife and lawyer both said. So when they told him to show up to an unscheduled appointment in Buffalo, he went early. It's the busy season for landscapers and he was hoping to get in, get out and get home to get to his clients.

His lawyer was worried he'd be deported. He suggested Ramos avoid the check-in and seek sanctuary in a church, instead. But Ramos wanted to follow the rules.

In a small office, an agent told Ramos his time was up. He was handcuffed. His wife, Melanie, was allowed to hug him. That was June 4. It was the last time.

Since then, she brought the couple's 9-year-old son and her 13-year-old son, whom Ramos is raising as his own, to see their dad at in the federal immigration detention center in Batavia. But they could only put their hand on the glass that separated the boys from their dad, she said.

"It was traumatic to see him that way," Melanie Ramos said. Her husband did not want the kids to see him like that again.

He also told her not to bring the 40 pounds of clothes that he would be allowed to take back with him when he was deported to Guatemala. He didn't think that would happen.

His wife started an online petition that now has more than 13,000 signatures. His lawyer filed for an emergency stay of his deportation and appealed his case to Board of Immigration Appeals. In the past, this had always meant at least a six-week delay on deportation.

That's not what happened.

Melanie Ramos said the ICE agent in charge of the deportation list came to her husband June 15 and told him he was on the list. Lorenzo Ramos was shackled and bused to Pennsylvania. There, he was put on a plane to ICE's Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana.

That's where detainees await deportation planes.

An ICE agent woke Lorenzo at 3 a.m. Thursday, shackled him and put him on a plane with dozens of others to Guatemala City, Guatemala, his wife said.

Because he was hopeful he would not be deported, Lorenzo Ramos had only the clothes on his back: sweatpants and a T-shirt. He had money in his pocket when he was detained. He was given that back, along with his wallet.

He has no cell phone because his number was the business number. His brother is running the business until he can return.

It is hard to explain to the boys where their father is and how long he'll be gone, Melanie Ramos said.

"I said there's tons of kids who have parents who are separated, in the Army, or across the sea," she said. This is kind of like that, she told them. He'll still be their dad.

They'll talk to him once he has a phone and internet service. Even though none of them speak Spanish and have never flown, they'll fly to see him in the spring if they can get the money together, she said.

"I'm doing my best to get him back in a year or two," Melanie Ramos said.

Marnie Eisenstadt writes about people, life and culture in Central New York. Contact her anytime: email | twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2246