Authorities have deported a 41-year-old man who was the focus of Kansas City group’s effort to keep him from being sent back to Mexico.

Josue Noe Sandoval-Perez was held since Jan. 22 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for immigration violations.

Communities Creating Opportunity, a Kansas City faith-based nonprofit, rallied against his deportation, saying he has a wife and two children. CCO says  Sandoval-Perez’s children are in Kansas City legally, while Sandoval-Perez and his wife, were not. Sandoval-Perez had been in the U.S. more than decade.

ICE says Sandoval-Perez has been turned over to Mexican authorities and was a deportation priority because he’d re-entered the U.S. illegally after being removed in 1998.

Fr. Jeff Stephan, who sought to keep Sandoval-Perez in Kansas City, says the family’s separation is a tragedy.