When you foresee a death, there’s no joy in being right. On June 4, I told my colleagues that Jimmy Aldaoud — a medically frail Michigan man who came to the United States in 1979 when he was an infant — was not going to survive. That was the day his sister Rita Bolis called to tell me he had been deported and was sleeping on a bench in an airport in Najaf, Iraq.

Mr. Aldaoud had never been to Iraq. He was born in Greece to Iraqi refugee parents. He had no ID and no ability to get the medical care he needed for his diabetes. He did not know Arabic, much less how to navigate a war-torn society where being Americanized makes you a target. On Aug. 6, Ms. Bolis contacted me again to say that her brother was dead. His family believes he died because he couldn’t obtain the medicine he needed in Iraq.

His funeral is Friday . His physical remains were sent to Michigan, the only way he could come back home. Jimmy Aldaoud — the living person who loved and was loved by his family — would never have been allowed in America again.

I am part of a team of lawyers who began trying to save Mr. Aldaoud’s life over two years ago, before we even knew his name. He was one of more than 1,400 Iraqis in this country with deportation orders, most issued years or even decades ago. In June 2017, Immigration and Customs Enforcement suddenly rounded up hundreds of them for immediate deportation.