Matt Ortega, Democratic candidate for California’s 14th Congressional District, released a statement on the detention and deportation of a Hayward family to Colombia this week:

A family fled violence. A family sought refuge. A family followed the law—and was punished for it.

Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez came to this country not to defy its laws but to seek their protection. She came not as a burden but as a mother. She came not to take from America but to ask of it the one thing it has always promised the world: that those who are persecuted may find here a sanctuary, and those who follow the rules may find here a home.

She kept her appointments. She reported as required. She complied. And at a routine check-in at a federal office in San Francisco, she and her two sons were seized, separated from their community, and removed from the country they had trusted.

Her eldest son is deaf. When a family member sought only to provide his hearing device, they were turned away. This is not administration. This is not enforcement. This is cruelty practiced in the name of the American people.

It is a violation of domestic law. It is a violation of international law. And it is a violation of something which cannot be amended, altered, or repealed—American values.

I am the father of two sons. I know what it is to want for them nothing more than safety and nothing less than justice. Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez wanted no more and no less for hers. She fled a violent man. She protected her children. She obeyed every instruction given to her. What more could this nation have asked of her?

Her story is not a single failure of process. It is the pattern. It is the policy. An administration that operates without restraint does so because a Congress without courage has permitted it—has looked away, has made its accommodations, has traded its oath for its comfort.

But let those who believe this moment is permanent be reminded: it is not. Governments change. Majorities shift. And history, which has a longer memory than any administration, will record what was done here—and to whom—and in whose name.

Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her sons belong in Hayward. Bring them home.