SEATTLE -- Saddened by a feeling of betrayal, Ernesto Gamboa wept several times as he told his story.

Drug trafficking is big business and Gamboa saw it. He first took noticed two years ago while working on cars.

After a friend of his died from drug overdose, Gamboa went to the Seattle Police Department.

"It seems to be everybody doing drugs and I thought, 'Well, somebody has to make a difference,'" he said.

A police detective made Gamboa prove himself. Then, once he passed the test, the man spent the next 13 years as an undercover informant for local, state and federal police agencies.

"We had a great time and great people to work (with). I learned a lot from them," said Gamboa.

But now, 13 years later, Gamboa is sitting in a holding cell, waiting to learn whether he'll be deported.

"It is kind of sad, because I think I don't deserve this," said Gamboa.

All along, the informant said he had U.S. citizenship in mind.

Gamboa said he was never promised a citizenship. But each time he helped with a bust, he would ask about the possibility, and each time he was told it's a process. The possibility was always present, he said.

"So that was every year: 'We're working on it, we're working on it, we're working on it,'" said Gamboa.

Gamboa said deportation would be no different from a death sentence. If he's sent back to El Salvador, he fears he'll be killed by the drug lords he helped put away.

But immigration officials apparently don't buy that argument.

"He has traveled to and from El Salvador out of his own free will and volition, and hadn't expressed that that would be a concern," said Lorie Danker of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gamboa admits he visited El Salvador for his father's funeral. But he's puzzled as to why he may be deported, especially since he is currently a key witness in a huge meth bust dubbed Operation Arctic Chill.

"I make mistakes in my life and I think being a human everybody makes mistakes, but being a man, (able) to set things right, I think that's what I really like about this country," he said.

To read Ken Schram's commentary on this story, click here.