A U.S. Army sergeant's wife could face deportation after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this month.
CBS News reported that Deisy Rivera Ortega was seized April 14 while attending an appointment at an El Paso Immigration office. Ortega is the wife of active duty U.S. Army sergeant Jose Serrano, 51. Serrano has served for 27 years, including in Afghanistan.
"I don't really understand why, because she followed the rules of immigration by the T since day one," Serrano told CBS News.
According to Serrano, his wife had an active work permit when she was detained by ICE.
"I love the Army. (The) Army helped me out for almost 28 years. It's not the Army, sir. It's ICE," Serrano told CBS News. "ICE is out of control right now, sir, taking away rights, as soldiers, that we have."
CBS News reported that Ortega had been granted legal protection in 2019, preventing her deportation to El Salvador. However, ICE told the network that she had entered the U.S. illegally a decade ago.
This is not the first time that a soldier's spouse has been detained by ICE while attempting to deal with their immigration status. Earlier this month The New York Times reported that a woman named Annie Ramos was detained by ICE. Ramos was set to marry U.S. Army staff sergeant Matthew Blank.
Ramos was detained under a deportation order that was entered when she was just 22 months old. According to the newspaper, Ramos had no criminal record, and the couple had begun legal immigration proceedings.
"I knew she didn't have status. We were doing everything the right way," Blank told the New York Times. "Our plan was to drive over, bring her to the office to get her military ID and activate her military spouse benefits. She was going to move in after the Easter weekend. Instead, she got ripped away from me," he told the NYT.
Meanwhile, Serrano has been told that his wife might be sent to Mexico, despite the fact that she is not from there and has no contacts in the country.
"We don't know nobody in Mexico," he told CBS News. "Plus, as a military, we're not allowed to go to Mexico."
