Nothing about April Amaya-Luis’ probation case adds up for her Baltimore attorneys Rachel Girod and Adam Crandell.

Amaya-Luis pleaded guilty earlier this month to second-degree assault after she was accused by an adult male pest control worker of unwanted touching during a visit to her home, according to court documents. She was convicted and sentenced to six months probation on that charge.

Amaya-Luis is undocumented, but is married to a U.S. citizen and had filed an application for legal status in December 2024, Girod said.

Instead of being released pending the resolution of her immigration case as her attorneys had hoped, the Kent County transgender woman was taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to an ICE detention facility in Miami and held with men. Her lawyers said they do not know where she is being held today.

Amaya-Luis’ case received national attention after the White House on Feb. 5 posted a picture of her on its X account as an example of crimes it claims were committed by immigrants. The White House and ICE have not responded to requests for comment.

“Everything that has happened since then has been extremely unusual,” Crandell said. “It seems like certainly her status as a trans woman seems to be the driving force for how the case is being handled.”

Amaya-Luis was placed in a facility with men even though her lawyers provided immigration officials with a passport that lists her name as April Amaya-Luis and shows that her gender is female, according to her lawyers.

Girod said when she objected to her client being held with men, ICE responded with an emailed response: “As per executive order, your client’s immutable, biological, classification is that of a male.”

“I was pretty stunned. But I also was not surprised — just more globally devastated for my client, and for other people in that community,” Girod said.

Her deportation charges have yet to be filed, Girod said.

In past years, Amaya-Luis’ second-degree assault conviction would not be considered severe enough to trigger her automatic deportation, experts say. But the detention and deportation of undocumented people is a top priority of this administration, making Amaya-Luis a target, Girod explained.

Girod said she has had limited opportunities to talk to her client. She has only seen her once, earlier this month in Baltimore. Amaya-Luis at the time looked dejected and disheveled wearing the same jeans and a pink graphic T-shirt from her arrest, Girod said.

“She was pretty soft-spoken. And she was doing her best to hang in there. Her primary concern is her husband and how much he has been suffering since she was detained. She’s asking, ‘How he’s doing?‘” Girod said. “She’s putting on a brave face.”

Girod said his client’s conviction stemmed from an altercation between Amaya-Luis and an adult pest-control worker in his 40s whom she did not know.

“The agreed statement of facts was that there was offensive touching in the course of getting the paperwork he needed to get in and out of there,” Girod said. “Her husband was home at the time.”

In a Feb. 5 social media post containing the message: “MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN,” the White House also said Amaya-Luis sexually abused a child, which her lawyers categorically deny.

“There isn’t an allegation that a child was in the vicinity,” Girod said.

Girod said she was also troubled by the fact the White House has used Amaya-Luis’ “deadname” — the former name that someone no longer uses, which is often a person’s birth name. It is oftentimes used to undermine and gaslight transgender people by not acknowledging their current gender, LGBTQIA+ advocates say. In his initial executive orders, Trump proclaimed there were only two sexes.

Critics of Trump have called his slew of executive orders targeted attacks on marginalized groups like transgender people and racial and ethnic minorities like Latinos.

Upon his first day in office, Trump’s executive order directed the government to recognize two sexes, male and female.

Federal prison officials recently tried to transfer three incarcerated transgender women into men’s facilities and terminated their access to hormone therapy under an executive order signed by Trump, but those moves were blocked, at least temporarily, by a judge.

Tyler Schelts, Amaya-Luis’ husband, said in an interview that it has been emotionally challenging living without his wife.

“It has been so hard coming home every day knowing my loved one is not here,” he said. The two have been together for the past six years and got married in November. “She has helped me every step of the way in life since I met her. She is a kindhearted person and the emotional damage has been the hardest two weeks of my life.”

Schelts believes his wife is being targeted because of her Mexican heritage.

“We got married because we love each other. I never thought anything would happen to her,” he said. “The process of becoming a U.S. citizen is a lot of work. I don’t really know the process very much. She was being a responsible person to report to probation as told and ICE was waiting for her to arrest her.”

For some, marriage to a U.S. citizen can lead to lawful permanent resident status, also known as a green card, within just a year or two. But for others, with current case processing times, it can take around seven years, Girod said.

“Because the relief isn’t immediate, ICE can still legally conduct its enforcement efforts against spouses of U.S. citizens in the meantime,” she added.