An undocumented Queens man who has lived in the U.S. for most of his life is now facing deportation, but his lawyers say he's being unfairly targeted. NY1's Lori Chung filed the following report.

Samantha Rojas is trying to come to terms with her fiance's arrest by immigration officers last week and his impending deportation.

"I'm trying to stay positive, but it's hard," she said.

Gabriel Alejandro Maldonado Vazquez, 27, was brought to the United States from his native Guatemala when he was five years old, a fact his attorney, C.J. Wang, says should have kept him from being targeted for arrest. He's now being held in a New Jersey facility, but his attorney says he fits the criteria for deferred action for childhood arrivals, or DACA.

"According to their own guidelines set by the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, they shouldn't have picked him up," Wang said.

DACA provides temporary relief from deportation, a permission slip of sorts for those who arrived in this country as children but who are in danger of being sent back.  

"They don't target and they don't deport people that are DACA-qualified," Wang said.

However, they need a relatively clean criminal record. Those with felony convictions or what's considered "significant misdemeanor convictions" don't qualify, and recipients can't have three or more misdemeanors of any kind on their records.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say an outstanding deportation order was issued for Vasquez back in 2007, saying, "As a convicted criminal with multiple misdemeanor convictions, he meets ICE's priorities for removal." That's something his attorney disputes.

"DACA allows for insignificant misdemeanors, of which his criminal history is," Wang said.

Rojas said her fiance didn't know about that order. She said he's turned his life around and now holds a job as a chef. She said she'll continue to work with his attorney to bring him back to the only home he's ever known.

"I have to stick by him," she said. "He doesn't really have anybody else."

Vazquez's attorney said they'll be working to reopen that deportation order as soon as possible.