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Trump Crackdown Holds Military Spouses 08/05 06:25
(AP) -- President Donald Trump's administration has detained dozens of
parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops as it rolls back immigration
protections for military families to pursue its mass deportation agenda, an
Associated Press investigation found.
More than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members have been
detained since Trump took office for a second term, and at least six have been
deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions, which the
government does not track. At least eight immediate family members of U.S.
service members remain in federal immigration custody.
Parents and spouses of people in the military have generally been shielded
from deportation under bipartisan consensus for decades. But the AP found
they're now routinely being detained for months as they try to adjust their
legal status through the policies available to service members' close relatives
and even as the military continues to recruit by advertising immigration
benefits for enlistees' families. Experts warn that the reversal could
undermine military preparedness even as the U.S. is at war in Iran. It's left
military members without emotional support and caretakers for their children,
delayed deployments and forced some to take leave.
"How can I even focus on my military career because I have to worry about
how my wife is doing?" said Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, who was
stationed in Fort Bliss, Texas, when his wife was detained outside a Walmart in
front of their 6-year-old daughter in July.
A handful of detentions of service members' spouses have prompted public
backlash and led to intervention by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne
Mullin to secure their release.
The Department of Homeland Security has said it does not compile data on
these cases. The AP obtained information by analyzing thousands of federal
court records compiled by Habeas Dockets, a project run by the Immigration
Justice Transparency Initiative; by reviewing existing media coverage; and by
verifying information with family members and attorneys. The actual number is
likely much higher than the 51 cases AP found.
The AP asked for comment from DHS on each case, including the individuals'
immigration and criminal history. The agency did not provide specific
information about the majority of cases but noted that at least seven people
had been removed from the U.S. before, at least eight had removal orders and at
least two had drunken driving or drug-related convictions.
"DHS and ICE value the contributions of all those who have served in the
U.S. military," DHS said in a statement. "U.S. military service alone does not
automatically grant lawful immigration status, or exempt aliens from the
consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws."
The Pentagon declined to comment on the AP's findings.
Service members are losing their safety net
Air Force Tech. Sgt. Wendy Gbeve, 30, said she hasn't had a good night's
sleep since her father, Luis Alberto Ramirez Zavala, was detained by
immigration officials last month. Gbeve was there when he was arrested at a
routine interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Missouri
about his pending application for legal status.
She spent hours refreshing the USCIS page to track where the government was
taking her father: from a county jail in Missouri to an Immigration and Customs
Enforcement detention facility in Texas. Finally, roughly two weeks after he
was detained, she found out he had been deported to his native Mexico.
"It's the most frustrating, helpless feeling," Gbeve said.
Gbeve said ICE still hasn't informed her family why her father was removed
so quickly. Ramirez Zavala spent most of his life in the U.S. working as a
ranch hand in rural Illinois.
Ramirez Zavala's wife of 30 years, a legal permanent resident, is
considering returning to Mexico to be with her husband. For Gbeve, whose
husband is also in the Air Force, that would leave no one to watch their
children, ages 2 and 4, if both were deployed.
"That would be our entire safety net," she said.
Military members have had to take leave or delay a deployment
Some service members have been left caring for children alone.
Army Staff Sgt. Alexis Jaramillo, an aviation operations specialist who has
served for more than a decade, said he would normally be involved in training
soldiers at Fort Polk, Louisiana. Instead, he is on administrative leave,
caring for his 5-year-old stepson, Noah, after his Brazilian wife, Maisa Lopes
Eliaser, was detained in early July.
It happened during what the family thought was a routine appointment at a
USCIS office in Alabama. Eliaser arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2019,
and the couple was trying to change her status.
Immigration officials asked Jaramillo and his stepson to leave the room.
Minutes later, they were told that Eliaser had been detained. The next time
they saw her was inside a detention facility.
"It is really overwhelming because I need to take care of my kid by myself.
No one is here to help me out," Jaramillo said.
At least one active-duty soldier halted her imminent deployment after her
husband was detained by immigration officers, leaving no one to care for their
then-5-year-old son, court records show. A judge eventually ordered the husband
released.
Trump's policy is a reversal even from his first administration
A new policy, implemented in April 2025, states that "military service alone
does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration
laws."
Experts in military immigration law said this marks a stark shift from
previous administrations across the political spectrum, including Trump's first
administration.
Dan Gividen, who served as ICE's deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019
under Trump, represents a soldier's father who has been in ICE custody for more
than eight months. He said that during his time as an ICE prosecutor,
immigration authorities rarely detained service members' immediate family
members unless they had committed violent crimes.
"We would not place them into removal proceedings, period. That's insane,"
Gividen said. "The fact that they're doing it now is just outrageous."
ICE previously generally canceled past removal orders and allowed parents or
spouses of troops to adjust their legal status, said Margaret Stock, an
immigration attorney and retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. She
said that's because the government wanted to ensure troops focused on their
duties.
"It's the same thing that happens if you don't provide healthcare to the
troops, or you don't provide housing to the troops," she said. If soldiers are
preoccupied with detained or deported family, "they're not concentrating on
their job anymore."
Even some congressional Republicans who are otherwise largely supportive of
Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown have pushed for the release of service
members' relatives.
"The immigration system is failing the honorable and good Americans,"
Florida Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar said at a news conference in July
advocating for the release of the wife of retired Staff Sgt. Wilmer Trujillo,
who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. DHS said she illegally reentered the U.S.
after being deported in 2005.
Although DHS said it does not have data on active-duty troops, it has
released figures for former service members, who also qualify for immigration
benefits along with their immediate families. From Jan. 20, 2025, through Jan.
26, 2026, immigration authorities detained 125 military veterans -- placing 34
into removal proceedings -- and arrested more than 150 immediate family
members, DHS said in a letter to several Democratic senators.
Anh Dung Cong Tran, known as "Tony," had both a father and son who served in
the military. Tran came to the U.S. in 1990 through a program for children of
American military personnel born in Vietnam. Tran, 56, was deported in July,
having lived in the U.S. for decades with regular check-ins with immigration
authorities after an assault conviction soon after his arrival.
His son Antonio Tran said his father persuaded him to enlist in the military
in 2022. "He has a totally different view on America now," said Tran, who was
discharged as an Army specialist in March after a serious injury.
Benefits for service members include what's known as parole-in-place
Military recruiters tout immigration benefits for troops' families as a
selling point to enlist.
One of the military's most highly advertised immigration benefits is
"military parole-in-place," which allows the spouses, children and parents of
active-duty service members and veterans to obtain legal immigration status
from within the country. Not everyone qualifies: Those who overstayed visas or
who already applied for legal status at the border, for example.
The policy was implemented under Republican President George W. Bush during
the U.S. war with Iraq in 2007 and codified under Democratic President Barack
Obama. DHS agencies can grant it on a case-by-case basis.
Under Trump, the average time it takes to receive military parole-in-place
has more than doubled to 12 months, according to USCIS data. That leaves
military families more vulnerable to being placed in ICE custody.
Recruiters are still promoting immigration benefits
The AP found that troops' immediate family members have repeatedly been
detained by ICE while applying for parole-in-place or seeking to adjust their
status, including during immigration appointments.
Marine Cpl. Jose Manuel Vilchis-Valle's mother, Ursula Borja Valle, was
detained at an appointment in August 2025 and deported to Mexico within a week.
She had lived in the U.S. since the 1990s without a known criminal record. Her
son was attempting to help her clear up a decades-old removal order through the
immigration benefits that military recruiters had used to help convince him to
enlist.
"They basically told me that if you serve, and if you served honorably, you
can help your parents," said Vilchis-Valle, 23, who was honorably discharged
shortly after his mother was deported. "In a perfect world, I wished, because
of my service, they could have pardoned her."
In other cases, ICE has detained people who had already been granted
protection, with the agency later arguing in court filings that their parole
status had been revoked.
In June 2025, the Marine Corps officially stopped advertising enlistment as
a way to protect immigrant family members, in response to inquiries from the
AP. But recruiters for the Army and the National Guard still promote it.
"For some service members, enlisting isn't just about serving their
country," read an Instagram post published in late July by an official Army
recruiter based in California. "It's also about doing everything they can to
help protect their parents who sacrificed everything for them."
Recruiters are expected to highlight the benefits of service to attract
applicants and military parole-in-place remains in effect, Army spokesperson
Christopher Surridge said.
The National Guard said it does not track detentions of its troops'
relatives or which recruiters advertise immigration benefits and referred
additional comment to DHS.
A soldier who helped patrol the border grapples with his father's detention
For U.S. Army Specialist Romero Ralios, his father's detention has left him
remorseful about his deployment last year to the Joint Task Force Southern
Border, where he spent nine months supporting U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
His father, Sebastian Ralios Tino, a Guatemalan landscaper with no known
criminal record, was detained this summer. He lived in the U.S. for nearly two
decades without legal status.
Ralios' commanding officer, Capt. Mohamed Elmaola, told the AP he wanted to
speak up because Ralios is a "phenomenal soldier" whose father should receive
due process.
"It's very hard to communicate and to have credibility as a leader when your
own subordinates are unable to get support," Elmaola said. "Considering he
enlisted his time and his life into supporting and defending the United States
Constitution, it is the right thing to do to support soldiers and their
families."
Romero Ralios now struggles to sleep at night due to the stress and wishes
he had not been involved in immigration enforcement, even though he was just
following orders.
"It was karma. I should've known," Ralios told the AP. "All those families I
broke. I have regrets."
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