“For me, it was like a nightmare. That’s like, ‘Oh, my God, what’s happened?’” says Moussa Diawara, who was deported from the U.S. in July.

Diawara is a Texas father who lived in the U.S. for 25 years with no criminal record. He was wrapping up his night shift as an Uber driver when he was deported. Without being able to speak to his lawyer or a judge, he was put on a plane and sent to Ghana, a country where he had no ties.

He had overstayed his U.S. tourist visa 25 years ago. He applied for refugee protection, arguing he would be persecuted if he were returned to his home country of Mali. In 2012, a U.S. immigration judge ruled he could be deported, but not to Mali. As a result of the ruling, he was able to get a U.S. work permit.

Past administrations rarely deported people in Diawara’s situation. But as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation, ICE has deported 25,000 people to third countries.