A Reno man is living in sanctuary, afraid of being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

David Chavez-Macias doesn't sleep. He lies awake at night listening to the clicking of his heart, staring at a strange ceiling from a bed that is not his, in the back of a church.

The clicking sound from a mechanical aortic valve can't drown out his thoughts as he lives in hiding in a small room that, until two months ago, was used as a preschool.

Chavez-Macias of Reno always thought he was doing the right thing. He applied for work permits, was approved. He worked two or three full-time landscape jobs at a time, paid his taxes, has a Social Security card and a driver's license.

"I'm legal now," he said to his wife, Leticia Guillen, each year when he received annual work permits, paying thousands of dollars to attorneys over decades for the freedom to stay in the United States.

But in April, Chavez-Macias was given a final order of deportation. An order that, because of his faulty heart, could mean a death sentence if he's sent back to his native Mexico. So he took a drastic step, to save his life.

For more than two months, Chavez-Macias has lived in sanctuary at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in south Reno. His wife stays with him.

She said it was the last resort for her husband.

"No choice," she said.

The church, which accepts members of all faiths, was the first in Nevada to provide physical sanctuary to undocumented immigrants when it gave sanctuary to a man in 2016. His deportation was later suspended.

Chavez-Macias still carries in his wallet a work permit that is valid until August 17, but the document appears to mean little in an uncertain world where arrests of undocumented immigrants are up year-over-year nearly 40 percent in the first four months of 2017.

In the first 100 days since President Donald Trump signed executive orders regarding immigration policies, more than 41,000 people were arrested for being, or suspected of being, in the country illegally, according to the Department of Homeland security.

Macias-Chavez said he fears for the life he had. He raised four children, crying at each of their graduations from Wooster High School. He and his family attended Little Flower Church on Sundays, and when he had the occasional day off from work as a landscaper, he was famous in his neighborhood for his carnitas.

While U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement has not responded to questions from the Reno Gazette-Journal about this specific case, it said it is prioritizing for deportation individuals who pose a risk to communities.

"Our officers prioritize cases based on a variety of factors, including the person's criminal and immigration history, as well as the viability of the leads we have on the individual's possible whereabouts," said ICE spokesperson James Schwab in San Francisco.

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But the latest data shows that non-criminal arrests of undocumented people have more than doubled in the first four months of 2017 compared to 2016.

Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly said that immigration officials are no longer exempting any person from removal if they are found to be in the country illegally.

Chavez-Macias falls in to that group. Never receiving anything more than a traffic ticket, he doesn't have a criminal record.

Chavez-Macias tries to stay still at night, not to wake his wife of 31 years.

"She will stay," he says in Spanish when asked what his wife will do if the outcome in a hard-to-win legal battle does not end in his favor.

His wife wipes away tears. They have never slept apart, even now as they live in the back of the church.

Chavez-Macias fears leaving could mean he is sent back to Aguascalientes, a city in central Mexico with crime rates so high the U.S. State Department recently warned Americans against traveling there.

It is a place he left for a better life for his wife and four children. He knows stories of men deported to Mexico. A friend of his was tortured and killed, he said.

"They are targeted because (the criminals) assume they have money," he said.

But death at the hands of his own heart is what scares Chavez-Macias as he lies awake at night.

Chavez-Macias was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome 20 years ago. Doctors have told him his life is in danger without the proper medical treatment.

The rare and sometimes fatal genetic syndrome causes the aorta, the blood vessel that carries blood to the heart, to grow.

In 2002, Chavez-Macias had heart surgery to replace the valve, which will need to be replaced again in the next few years.

A move to Mexico could kill the devoted father and hard-working man, says his doctor.

Jason Crawford, chief medical officer for the Community Health Alliance, has treated Chavez-Macias since 2013.

"If he gets moved or deported to a different country, his home country, Mexico, then I can't pick up the phone and talk to a doctor there, because I don't know who that would be nor where will he be," Crawford said.

Crawford said Chavez-Macias needs access to heart specialist, something unlikely in most parts of Mexico.

Crawford said in his line of work he has written many letters in support of undocumented workers to stay in this country. He has written to immigration officials asking for leniency in this case.

"If this guy hadn't been here already for 30 years, paid taxes, done everything legally and had this major medical issue, maybe that makes it easier," Crawford said. "I'm not saying it's right to do to anybody, but this guy, come on."

Chavez-Macias, 52, didn't go to his last meeting with immigration officials on April 5.

Instead, he brought a duffle bag filled with a few belonging to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

"It is an immigration system (that), based on our religious understandings, is immoral because it separates families, particularly families that have lived and worked in our communities," said the Rev. Neal Anderson of the fellowship.

"And in David's case, it puts them in danger of their life," Anderson said.

He and his congregation voted to allow Chavez-Macias to stay at the church.

It took weeks for Anderson to convince Chavez-Macias he was likely safe to walk outside.

His wife, Leticia Guillen, also undocumented, has had an application for citizenship for nearly 15 years. Her brother, a U.S. citizen, applied on her behalf.

But she has somehow remained below the radar of immigration officials.

The couple's four children, Susana, 30, Nandy, 29, Ariana, 26 and Juan, 23, have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival status. DACA, created through an executive order under President Barack Obama, allows children who were brought to the U.S. before age 16 to work or study in the United States without fear of deportation by applying for permits. The permits are good for two years and can be renewed.

But they are afraid, too.

They are afraid of what will happen to their father.

Susana remembers her father crying at each of their high school graduations.

"It's hard to see this happening," she said.

Most evenings, the adult children visit with their parents at the church. They bring food. The wait for news of what will happen to their father.

"David is someone who hasn't done anything wrong," said Aria Overli, an organizer with Acting in Community Together Organizing Northern Nevada. Commonly called ACTiONN, the grassroots group or various religious leaders has reaching out to political leaders and started an online petition to stop his deportation.

She said splitting apart a family is unfair for a man who hasn't had anything more than a traffic ticket.

After receiving temporary work permits for several years after first crossing the border from Mexico, Chavez-Macias went to an attorney. He said he wanted to take the steps necessary to become a legal citizen after moving to Reno permanently in 1995.

Chavez-Macias paid the attorney $5,000.

"When I went back to the lawyer, he said, 'I can't do anything for your case. Here are your papers,'" Chavez-Macias said of applications to immigration. "He kept the money."

Chavez-Macias continued to work as a landscaper using the same Social Security number he was given with his work permit.

That changed on March 16, 2013, when he was pulled over for making a right turn on red at a traffic light on Kietzke Lane.

"Another car before turned on green, and when it was my turn it was already yellow," Chavez-Macias said.

The officer took his driver's license, then returned with a printout showing Chavez-Macias' picture.

According to Chavez-Macias, the officer asked him, "Are you the monkey in this picture?"

Chavez-Macias spent three months in jail on an immigration hold until he was released under house arrest because of his health condition.

For two years and four months, he was under house arrest. He checked in monthly with immigration officials, again believing he was doing what was necessary to stay in the country.

He said he filed paperwork and paid fees and again was given a work permit.

When it expired last August, he applied again and was given another work permit.

But in October, he received a letter that his case was denied and that his next meeting with immigration officials was on April 5.

A lawyer told Chavez-Macias there wasn't much more that could be done and that seeking sanctuary was an option.

U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement has rarely removed people from sensitive locations such as churches or schools although there is no law preventing it.

"Since I didn't have a permit to work or a lawyer anymore, I was afraid if I showed up for my April 5 appointment, I was going to be deported," he said.

Since Chavez-Macias has been in sanctuary, immigration attorney Dee Sull from Las Vegas has taken his case pro bono. Sull, with the American immigration Lawyers Association, met with Chavez-Macias and his family in May.

"It is a tragic case," Sull said. "This is a man who along the way thought he was doing what he needed to but he never understood the process."

She said his case is complicated by the years of poor advice he has received.

"I am the sixth person, attorney, in his life," she said. "He's a simple man, not complicated, who along the way never understood."

"I've told him this isn't going to be an easy course and there are no guarantees."

Sull said she is trying to informally appeal to immigration officials on behalf of Chavez-Macias. She sent a letter to immigration officials and expects to hear something soon.

"This will be very challenging and ultimately depends on the ICE officer," she said.

She said she used his medical condition to plead his case.

"He really believed he was doing what he needed to all along to stay in this country," she said. Her plea to an immigration officer is the last option for Chavez-Macias, she said.

"The first thing I will do is go back to work," he said if he is given reassurances that he would not be arrested and sent to Mexico.

"Now we just wait and pray," said his wife. "We know if they send him back to Mexico, it is sending him to die."

The couple sits awkwardly on the edge of the bed in the back of the church most nights.

The watch TV. The volume on the Spanish news station is so low, no one would know anyone was inside the room.

"To go home," Chavez-Macias says. "That's all I want."