Isn't "freed and flown home" the same thing as "deported"? These were routine professionals doing a job they took in good faith under rules and norms that have held for a century or more.
Before IIRIRA in 1996, US immigration law had separate processes for deportation and exclusion. Since then, we have a single, unified process called removal. So technically deportation no longer exists. It is more proper to say that someone is being removed.