A US army sergeant with 27 years of military service – including deployment to Afghanistan – has said that federal immigration agents recently arrested his wife during an appointment at an immigration office in El Paso, Texas.
In an interview with CBS News published Monday, Sgt First Class Jose Serrano said that Deisy Rivera Ortega, a Salvadoran and his wife, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers under the command of the Trump administration despite receiving legal protection in 2019 that bars her from being deported to El Salvador. Rivera Ortega, who wed Serrano in 2022, has been in the US since 2016, he said.
“I don’t really understand why, because she followed the rules of immigration by the T since day one,” Serrano, 51, told CBS News of her detention.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, told CBS News that Rivera Ortega came into the US illegally. Serrano reportedly said he was informed that Rivera Ortega could be removed to a different country, such as Mexico.
Serrano said that Rivera Ortega has no ties to Mexico. “We don’t know nobody in Mexico,” he told CBS.
He also told the network she had an active work permit before her arrest at an immigration law office appointment on 14 April.
Rivera Ortega’s reported case is the latest of several instances that contradict the Trump administration’s initial claims that its immigration crackdown would prioritize deporting dangerous criminals. As it has sought to increase deportation numbers, the campaign has affected a growing number of military service members’ relatives – often without consideration for the veterans’ records of having defended the US.
DHS told CBS that Rivera Ortega was ordered deported on 12 December 2019 and had received “full due process” prior to that decision. The department called her a “criminal illegal alien” over her conviction of illegal entry into the US, which is a federal misdemeanor.
Matthew Kozik, an attorney who represents Serrano and Rivera Ortega, said that a court petition claiming her detention was illegal. Kozik told CBS he had served the army as a judge advocate and combat veteran; had earned a bronze star during his service and believed “what is going on is absurd”.
Serrano for his part told CBS: “I love the army. [The] army helped me out for almost 28 years. 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.”
Serrano told CBS he would likely be unable to visit his wife in Mexico, given restrictions on US military members’ travel.
“Since this happened, I’m sleeping only two hours a day, two hours a night,” said Serrano, who has previously undergone treatment for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In another similar case, ICE agents reportedly detained the wife of a US army sergeant at his Louisiana military base as he was getting ready to deploy. Agents arrested Annie Ramos mere days after her marriage to Matthew Blank, whose deployments included stints in the Middle East and Europe.
The New York Times, which first reported on Ramos’ detention, said that she was a biochemistry student and Sunday school teacher and has no criminal past. Ramos received a deportation order “in absentia” after her family failed to go to an immigration hearing in 2005 – when she was a baby.
Ramos was released from federal custody after her case was covered in the news media. After her release, she issued a statement saying her focus would be on obtaining legal immigration.
Meanwhile, in May 2025, the son of a US military veteran was deported to Jamaica. That man, named Jermaine Thomas does not have citizenship in any country after being born on a US military base in Germany, the Austin Chronicle reported.
Thomas’s father, a US citizen who is deceased, was born in Jamaica. Federal authorities claimed that Thomas, who had previously been ordered deported, was not an American citizen simply because he was born on a US Army base, and they invoked prior criminal convictions to support their push to deport him.
Neither DHS nor ICE immediately responded to a request for comment about Rivera Ortega’s detention.
The US army for its part said it was referring questions to DHS.
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