Jesus Lara and his family

The New York Times highlights the story of Jesus Lara, an undocumented dad of four U.S. citizens who stands to get ripped away from his family and the small Ohio town he’s called home for nearly two decades.

Because farming towns like Willard depend heavily on immigrant labor—“we pray and hope the workers show up,” said one local—Donald Trump’s mass deportation dragnet could devastate communities and local economies by casting out immigrants like Lara, who want nothing more than to work hard so they can see their kids succeed.

The dad had been checking in regularly with ICE since getting arrested in 2011, and had even been given a work permit so he could support his family:

In 2008, Mr. Lara was pulled over on his way to the dentist. Unable to produce a driver’s license, which is not issued to undocumented residents in Ohio, he was jailed. A sheriff’s deputy contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Deportation proceedings followed, culminating in a removal order in 2011. The government granted Mr. Lara a deportation reprieve because he was otherwise law-abiding, and he was placed under an order of supervision with a work permit, requiring that he check in with ICE annually and renew it.

Then came his check-in under the Trump administration:

In January, after the Trump administration announced that no one in the country illegally was exempt from deportation, immigrants like Mr. Lara became vulnerable. On March 28, when he arrived for his check-in with ICE in Cleveland, officials tethered an electronic tracking monitor to his ankle over objections from his lawyer, who argued that he was no flight risk. When Mr. Lara raised his trousers to reveal the black, clunky device — he charges it every 12 hours — Elsiy blurted out: “That’s a thing the police put. My Daddy isn’t a criminal!”

Now Lara stands to get ripped away from his family for driving without a license, something the state won’t allow him to apply for in the first place.