Donald Trump's "bad hombres" include a man who volunteered at Ground Zero after 9/11

Carlos Humberto Cardona, an immigrant from Colombia who came to the United States 30 years ago, when he was just 17, risked his own health to volunteer in the recovery efforts at Ground Zero.

Now, while Trump sits in the White House, Cardona sits in a New Jersey detention center — one of thousands of immigrants rounded up by Trump’s especially vicious Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies.

ICE agents have been particularly emboldened under Trump, who campaigned on a promise of deporting millions of immigrants — including immigrants who are here legally.

During a CBS interview in 2015, Trump said that his “beautiful wall” on the southern border would have “a big, very beautiful door because we want the legals to come back into the country.”

While most media never challenged Trump on that particular statement, it demonstrated just how extreme his immigration policies would be. And while Trump casually described Mexicans as “rapists” on the first day of his presidential campaign, and often referred to immigrants as “bad hombres,” it is difficult to see how the Trump administration could possibly classify Cardona as a “bad hombre.”

Cardona fled Columbia after his own family was murdered. He has a wife and daughter in the United States and suffers from several health problems as a result of the time he spent at Ground Zero.

His attorney, Rajesh Barua, has filed suit seeking to have Cardona’s application to stay in the country, based on his marriage to a naturalized U.S. citizen, immediately processed so that he will not be deported.

“He’s very much an American,” Barua said. “He’s scared of going back to Colombia. He doesn’t know how he’ll maintain a living and what kind of treatment he’ll have for respiratory problems, which are very real.”

If a man who sacrificed his own health after the attacks of 9/11 does not constitute a “good hombre” under Trump, you have to wonder if anyone does.