Over three decades, Mr. Ceesay, 63, lived a simple life in the same Bronx apartment he has shared with other Gambians since arriving in New York, cheering the Knicks on television. Mr. Ceesay, who is illiterate, swept sidewalks in the Flatiron district in Manhattan for years until two heart attacks forced him to stop.

Like the Salvadoran brothers, Mr. Ceesay was on ICE’s radar. He had been checking in with the agency for 15 years while his deportation remain unresolved. He is among the 1.4 million migrants who have already been ordered by judges to leave the United States, but have not.

That changed on Feb. 14 when he was asked to check in at 26 Federal Plaza.

Mr. Ceesay was arrested during the routine check-in and sent to the detention center near Buffalo but without the medicine he needed to treat his hypertension and chronic heart failure.

He developed strokelike symptoms and did not receive medical care until days later, when Sarah Gillman, a lawyer from the advocacy group Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, was visiting the center and noticed he was sick.

“When I met them,” Mr. Ceesay said, “they saved my life.”

The organization began representing Mr. Ceesay, arguing that he had been unlawfully detained. After more than two months, he was released when a federal judge ruled that he had to be given a “reasonable” opportunity to prepare for his deportation to Gambia, including arranging medical care.

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Learn more about the case here.