Conditional in novels

Hi.
I got the passage below in a novel.
The character has been describing what she felt at the time her boyfriend Felipe was refused to enter the United States.


He'd put his kids through the finest private schools in Australia with income that he'd made in America over the decades. America was the center of his professional life, even though he'd never lived here until very recently. But his inventory was here and all his contacts were here. If he could never come back to America again, his livelifood was effectively destroyed. Not to mention the fact that I lived here in the U.S, and that Felipe wanted to be with me, and that - because of my family and my work - I would always want to remain based in America. So how would we continue our life together if he were forever banned? What would we do? "On what ground are you deporting him?" I asked the Homeland Security officer.

Question:

How does this sentence make sense to native speakers? Since obviously it is not what used to happen in the past, I think was in the underlined sentence should be would be or some other modals + be.

Thank you very much in advance.