“I saw Warren talking to the police officers. He was cooperating with them and seemed calm,” Streiger’s neighbor, Wilfredo Rivera, 31, said. “He was patient.”

Papove said he was confused when the officers asked him if he had ever worked for Welsh. According to the police report, the ICE supervisor was at the scene and asked police officers to drive Papove to the South Miami police station to continue the investigation.

Neighbor Padial said he was arriving home when he saw Papove for the last time, in handcuffs, getting into a car with tinted windows, and thought police had wrongly assumed that he was trespassing.

“I approached the officers to clear the misunderstanding. I told one of them that we knew him, and he was welcome in our property and in our neighbor’s property,” Padial said. “They were rude and asked me to leave.”

Rivera also tried talking to the code-enforcement officer, but he also asked him to leave, because they were “conducting an investigation.”

Warren said that when he was detained at the South Miami Police Department, authorities continued to ask him about his relationship with Welsh. On Sunday, Papove was being held at the Krome Detention Center, and said he had not had contact with his deportation officer, nor had he seen a judge. On Monday, he was transferred to the Glades County Detention Center, near Lake Okeechobee, Welsh said.

“There is an overcrowding problem that exists at Krome. They could have taken him to North Florida. I was told they were going to take him to Jacksonville,” Ostergard said. “He is in limbo.”

For years, Papove used his bicycle and a tool box to help homeowners including Welsh, who had hired him repeatedly over the years. Some paid him for his work in cash. Others gave him a place to stay, and some even gave him beer.

“I did not know he was illegal. I understand that he has to be deported, but the manner in which this action is taking place invites a whole array of questions,” Streiger, 62, said. “Many of us are disappointed and clearly a bit frightened at what is happening in the ‘City of Pleasant Living’ these days.”