In the summer of 2014, Noe Lopez-Mulato was playing in a community soccer game in southwest Detroit when an unruly fan on the sidelines started heckling him and verbally abused his play.

Things quickly escalated. Words were exchanged and the heckler pulled out a gun and started firing shots, missing Lopez-Mulato, but striking his brother who had rushed the field to protect him.

The brothers, both of them undocumented Mexican immigrants, cooperated in the case and testified against the shooter, who was convicted and is now in prison. The cooperation made them both eligible for a special visa that would allow them to obtain legal status and live in the U.S.

But it didn't work out that way.

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This month, while taking his son to school, Lopez-Mulato was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who pulled over a car in which he was riding. It was the last time he saw his 10-year-old son, who sat quietly in the back seat as the men with the words ICE on their backs handcuffed his father and took him away.

"They just said, 'We have to take your dad,' " 10-year-old Randy Lopez-Mulato recalled of the incident, his voice quivering as he remembered his dad's final words as the agents led him away.

"He said that he loves everybody," the fifth-grader said, unable to hold back the tears.

"I want him to come back," Randy said. "He takes care of our family."

On Oct. 23, five days after his arrest, Lopez-Mulato was deported.

Four days later, life threw another curve ball at Randy: ICE arrested his uncle, Jose Lopez-Mulato — the man who went to his father's rescue during the soccer shooting.

Like his father, Randy's uncle also applied for a special U visa to stay in the U.S. But ICE arrested him with the visa application still pending.

"I'm livid," said attorney Michael Harrison, a prominent Birmingham lawyer who has intervened in the case for free.

"Look around you," Harrison said while standing in Lopez-Mulato's living room last week, gesturing toward a toddler playing with his toy cars on the floor and the soccer trophies and baby pictures on a corner stand.

"These are good, decent people. This is the backbone of our country," said Harrison, who believes the deportation will only hurt the neighborhood and law enforcement's efforts to keep it safe.

"What kind of message is this sending to this community? To me the message is 'Stay in the shadows. Don't cooperate with police,' " said Harrison, a former prosecutor who once worked on an anti-gang task force in southwest Detroit.

Harrison said he's especially angry that Lopez-Mulato has a pending U visa application that hasn't yet been ruled on. Lopez-Mulato, who is 34, tried to explain that to ICE, he said, but "they didn't care. They didn't want to hear it ... they just scooted him out on a plane."

Years chasing American dream

Lopez-Mulato was 17 when he and his older brother came to the U.S. from Mexico.

Over the years, he worked various constructions jobs and raised a family in southwest Detroit — he has two sons, Randy, and 3-year-old Andy. He paid taxes on his $20,000-plus annual salary, filed W-2 forms and never received any form of public assistance from the government, according to immigration documents obtained by the Free Press.

Lopez-Mulato was an avid soccer player in his neighborhood league, with a couple of trophies to show for it, and had no criminal record, with the exception of one operating under the influence conviction.

In 2007, he voluntarily left the U.S. after it was discovered he was living in here illegally. In 2009, he returned, triggering a deportation order that was never acted on until this month.

His family says he lived a clean life, worked hard and was generous to his friends, the kind of guy who offered to pay for peoples' haircuts at the barber. Or if he ran into someone at the bakery, he'd buy them pastries.

But he was most committed to his kids and encouraged them to become something. Randy, a soccer player like his dad, wants to become an FBI agent.

"He's the head of the family. He's the one that pays the bills, takes them out to eat, to soccer games, practices ... and whenever he can, he wants to be helpful to others," said his niece Cyndy Garcia, 19, who has stepped up to help care for Randy and Andy with their dad back in Mexico.

It was Garcia who got the desperate phone call from Randy on the morning his father was arrested.

"Cyndy, can you please answer. ICE — they grabbed my dad," the crying boy said in the voice message. "Please come.The police grabbed him today. Cyndy, answer the phone, please."

When Garcia heard the message, she dropped everything and rushed to help her cousin.

"When I heard that — Oh my God, I was just sobbing," said Garcia, who fears ICE is ramping up its deportation efforts in southwest Detroit, noting she saw four ICE vehicles in the neighborhood on Thursday within an hour's time.

"It's really scaring us," Garcia said. "ICE is just waiting for people to come out of their houses."

That same morning, ICE arrested two of her uncles on their way to work.

ICE declined to comment on the specifics of this case, but issued this statement on its overall efforts to uphold immigration laws:

"ICE does not engage in raids or roundups. This implies indiscriminate enforcement, something in which ICE does not engage. The agency conducts targeted enforcement actions in which specific individuals are sought based on investigative leads and intelligence gathering," ICE said in a statement to the Free Press.

It continued: "ICE continues to focus its enforcement resources on individuals who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security. However, as ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan has made clear, ICE does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement. All of those in violation of the immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States."

Soccer match shooting

On June 29, 2014, Lopez-Mulato was playing in a soccer match at Patton Park in southwest Detroit when a man on the sidelines started verbally abusing him for the way he was playing.

Words were exchanged, police records show. And the unruly fan pulled out a gun and started firing shots.

Lopez-Mulato's brother jumped in to help and was shot in the groin area twice.

According to the Detroit police report obtained by the Free Press, several people "rushed the shooter to keep him from shooting anyone else as they fought with him."

"The crowd then began to strike the offender till he released the gun," the report stated.

The shooter was Gavina Medina, then 18, of Pontiac, who was convicted of assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder. The Lopez-Mulato brothers testified against him at a preliminary hearing. He received a 1-to-10 year prison sentence and is eligible for parole on Nov. 17.

On their applications seeking the special U visa, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office confirmed that the men had been "most helpful" "in the prosecution of the case and said they were "cooperative throughout" the investigation and prosecution.

The investigating officer for the Detroit Police Department who oversaw the soccer shooting also signed their applications seeking visas that would allow them to live here legally.

That officer spoke to the Free Press this week and believes the brothers are getting a raw deal — not just because they cooperated with law enforcement, but because they're good people, he said.

"Over the years I’ve gotten to know them ... and I can say that those two guys were hardworking brothers — working six days a week, paying their houses. They wouldn't hurt a fly," said the DPD officer, who requested anonymity.

The DPD officer is baffled and angry by ICE's actions.

"I feel bad. You just tore a family apart," he said. "How can you be so insensitive. I don’t understand that," the officer said. "It's a pitiful game what they're doing to these people."

Silencing crime victims?

For Harrison, Lopez-Mulato's deportation was a punch to the gut. Years ago, he had worked in southwest Detroit and saw the plight of undocumented immigrants first-hand, he said.

As a former Wayne County prosecutor, Harrison was assigned to southwest Detroit for several years to act as a community prosecutor whose job involved prosecuting violent crimes. Years later, he was assigned to a Department of Justice task force that centered its efforts on gang violence in southwest Detroit.

During those years, Harrison saw criminals prey on undocumented immigrants, knowing they were afraid to talk.

"I learned that often, undocumented individuals were specifically targeted by criminals for crimes such as robbery, rape and felonious assault specifically because they were undocumented — and the criminals felt safe that such people would be afraid to cooperate with the police," Harrison said.

So one answer to this dilemma, Harrison said, was the so-called U visa program, which allowed certain undocumented immigrants who were victims of violent crimes — or witnesses to them — to qualify for legal status if they cooperated with law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting the criminals.

"This was a great motivator for our victims and witnesses and the “soft touch” approach of ICE during this time significantly assisted us in getting violent criminals off the streets," said Harrison, who fears ICE ignoring the purpose of the U VISA.

Harrison said arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants like the brothers — who were witnesses and victims of violent crime — while their U visa applications are pending "shocks the conscience." It also defeats ICE's bigger goal by striking fear into undocumented immigrants.

"If the undocumented community again goes silent, law enforcement will lose important, often crucial, evidence and intelligence that is necessary to the successful investigation and prosecution of violent crime," Harrison said.

Meanwhile, Harrison is fighting to get Lopez-Mulato back in the U.S. so that he can pursue his U visa application with a hearing. He's also trying to help the man's brother, Jose Lopez-Mulato, from being deported.

Jose Lopez-Mulato is hoping for the same. As he wrote in his visa application:

"I am a hard worker, a taxpayer and someone who tries to be a benefit to my family and society. I intend to continue to be so."

Tresa Baldas can be contacted at tbaldas@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @Tbaldas