A man was deported from Maryland under the Alien Enemies Act — a 1798 law invoked by President Donald Trump — according to his wife, but she says he’s not part of a criminal organization and has protected status in the U.S.

The Alien Enemies Act allows the U.S. government to detain and deport nationals of an enemy nation during war or an invasion.

The man, who News4 refers to as Armando to protect his identity, is in prison in El Salvador, according to his wife and attorney.

Over the weekend, El Salvador’s president posted a video to X that Armando’s wife says shows her husband being frog walked by guards. His wife had no idea where her husband was until she recognized him in the video. She also recognized his distinctive tattoos in a photograph.

“This is unfair,” she said. “You just don’t go randomly picking up people and sending them and putting on a plane.”

According to Armando’s attorney, Lucia Curiel, 29-year-old Armando was given the status of withholding of removal in 2019. A document she provided shows the status was granted and cites a clause that provides restriction on deportation but has exceptions in which the person can be removed, such as reasonable grounds to believe the person is a danger.

Curiel says he is not a danger and has routinely checked in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I have never heard of anything like this happening, and any other lawyer that I talked to is also, I mean, the reaction is just one of shock, because this really is just a flagrantly ignoring the law,” Curiel said. “This is completely illegal by any stretch of the imagination.”

News4 found no local criminal record for Armando, not even a traffic ticket.

However, Curiel said Armando was accused by Prince George’s County police of wearing a gang shirt in March 2019. The claim wasn’t substantiated, she said, but she believes that might be the reason Armando was targeted for deportation.

“I don’t know why they noticed me,” Armando told News4 through an interpreter in December 2020. “Perhaps because of my Latino race, they labeled me as a gang member, which I have never been. And I have no criminal record in my country or in the United States.”

ICE picked up Armando March 12 near IKEA in College Park. According to his wife, he had just left the house with his young son and was heading to the bus stop to pick up his older kids.

“When they put him in the vehicle, they still took me to the vehicle and opened the door and told me to say goodbye to him,” Armando’s wife said.

“He just old me to take care of my kids, and I told him everything is going to be fine,” she said. “You’re going to come back, because you haven’t done nothing. You have your work permit.”

In a recent interview with the News4 I-Team, the director of ICE operations in Maryland said everything ICE does is highly targeted.

Curiel believes Armando was on one of three flights that left from Texas last week. Trump said the flights had “bad people on them.”

“These were bad people,” Trump said. “That was a bad group of, as I say, hombres.”

A spokesman for ICE in Baltimore referred questions about Armando to the White House or State Department.

In Monday’s White House press briefing, reporters asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt how they determined everyone they detained had a criminal record.

“I can ensure the American people that customs and border patrol and ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are sure about the identities of the individuals who were on these planes and the threat that they posed to our homeland,” she said.

The only recourse now may be a lawsuit, Curiel said.

“Because the government of the United States has clearly violated his rights by deporting him to El Salvador and violated U.S. law by deporting him to El Salvador,” she said.

A DHS spokesperson declined to provide any criminal records or details but sent a statement in response, saying, “We are confident in DHS intelligence assessments on these gang affiliations and criminality. This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law."

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