An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer arrested the wife of a US Army sergeant with nearly three decades of military service during a routine appointment at an immigration office in El Paso, Texas, raising fresh questions about how the agency is applying deportation enforcement under the Trump administration.
Sgt First Class Jose Serrano, 51, told CBS News that his wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega, was taken into custody on April 14 despite holding legal protections granted to her in 2019 that shield her from deportation to El Salvador. Serrano said Rivera Ortega, a Salvadoran national, has lived in the United States since 2016 and married him in 2022. She had a valid work permit at the time of her arrest, he said.
"I don't really understand why, because she followed the rules of immigration by the T since day one," Serrano told the network.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, claimed that Rivera Ortega entered the country illegally. A DHS official told CBS that she had been issued a deportation order in December 2019 and received full due process before that decision. The agency classified her as a "criminal illegal alien" based on a federal misdemeanor conviction for illegal entry.
Serrano said DHS indicated his wife could be removed to Mexico, a country where she has no family connections or ties. "We don't know nobody in Mexico," he told CBS News.
Matthew Kozik, an attorney representing the couple, filed a court petition challenging the legality of her detention. Kozik, a former judge advocate and combat veteran who earned a Bronze Star, told CBS that the situation struck him as fundamentally unjust.
Serrano emphasized that his grievance is not with the military institution that shaped his career. "I love the army," he said. "It's not the army, sir. It's ICE. ICE is out of control right now, sir, taking away rights, as soldiers, that we have."
The arrest has taken a personal toll. Serrano, who has previously been treated for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, said he is now sleeping only two hours per night. As a US military member, he faces severe restrictions on travel to Mexico, which would make visiting his wife extraordinarily difficult.
A pattern emerges
Rivera Ortega's detention is not an isolated case. ICE agents arrested Annie Ramos, the wife of US Army Sergeant Matthew Blank, at his Louisiana military base just days after the couple married. Blank has deployed to the Middle East and Europe in his military career.
Ramos, a biochemistry student and Sunday school teacher with no criminal history, had received a deportation order issued "in absentia" after her family missed an immigration hearing in 2005, when she was an infant. Media coverage of her case prompted her release from federal custody, after which she vowed to pursue legal immigration status.
In another case from May 2025, Jermaine Thomas, the son of a deceased US military veteran, was deported to Jamaica. Thomas was born on a US Army base in Germany and holds no citizenship of any country. Federal authorities cited prior criminal convictions and argued that his birthplace on a military installation meant he was not entitled to American citizenship, even though his father was a US citizen born in Jamaica.
These cases undercut the Trump administration's initial statements that its immigration enforcement would target dangerous criminals. Instead, the enforcement campaign has swept up relatives of military service members with increasing frequency, often without regard for the veterans' decades of service to the country.
Neither DHS nor ICE responded to requests for comment about Rivera Ortega's detention. The US Army referred questions to DHS.
Author James Rodriguez: "Locking up the wife of a 27-year Army veteran who followed every rule while releasing dangerous criminals is not just bureaucratic incompetence, it's a betrayal of the people who've sacrificed for this country."
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