I sincerely don't understand why deportation is called a punishment in this discussion.
As in any country in the world, US immigration law operates on the principle that a foreigner is granted a PRIVILEGE to be in the US. Or this privilege is denied with no reason whatsoever. Just because it is a PRIVILEGE.
When someone is deported for participating in protests, they are still literally in a better position than the BILLIONS of people who want to be in the US but who are denied this privilege without any justification.
Why do we think this man was punished by the United States, at the same time thing that the BILLIONS of people the US arbitrarily bans from being in its territory were not punished? Compared to those billions, he rather have been granted the privilege of being on US territory (for a while).