Trump’s immigration crackdown: Wife of US Army sergeant deported to Honduras

The wife of an active-duty US Army sergeant has been deported to her native Honduras, according to her family and the US Department of Homeland Security.

Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on July 11 outside a Walmart near Fort Bliss, Texas, where her husband, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, is stationed.

The Associated Press reported on Tuesday that Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty US military service member to be deported under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Turcios Juarez told Military Times also on Tuesday that he spoke with his wife after she was deported.

“She is okay,” he told Military Times.

The couple have been legally married since 2022 and have a six-year-old daughter. Their daughter was in the car when agents detained Villafranca-Trejo after the family’s trip to Walmart.

Turcios Juarez has since had to care for their daughter without his wife’s help, according to AP. Instead of attending morning training, he takes his daughter to first grade, and he said he has already had to postpone a planned assignment at another base.

“I don’t know if I will be able to continue with this,” Turcios Juarez told AP of his Army career. “I have to make a plan to make sure I can still fulfill my military responsibilities — but also take care of my family.”

Villafranca-Trejo was listed as a dependent in the Army’s personnel system and on Turcios Juarez’s upcoming orders to move to Oklahoma, according to Military Times.

Turcios Juarez told Military Times that his wife entered the United States looking for “a better life” before the couple met in 2018.

According to AP, Villafranca-Trejo entered the US from Honduras in 2016 at age 18 and has no known criminal record.

DHS said Villafranca-Trejo had received “due process” before her deportation.

According to DHS, Villafranca-Trejo was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2017 after failing to appear at a hearing.

Her husband, however, told AP that she had not received notice of the hearing she missed and did not realise she had been ordered deported until they applied for her green card after their marriage in 2022.

Military Times reported that the couple began an application for her citizenship in 2024 and learned that she had an order of removal issued in 2017 after a missed appearance. They were working with legal counsel to appeal.

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AP reported that Villafranca-Trejo’s motion to reopen her case was denied in May, while an appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals remained pending, according to her attorney.

She had also been waiting for about a year for a decision on her application for military parole-in-place, a programme that allows immediate family members of US troops to remain in the country while applying for a green card.

“We were following the rules — we did everything we could on our side to fix this problem,” Turcios Juarez told AP.

Before Trump’s second administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would typically allow immediate family members of US troops to adjust their legal status even if they had been issued a final order of removal, according to Dan Gividen, who served as ICE deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019 under Trump.

“If you’ve got an active-duty military member that’s married to someone now, and that’s going to give her the opportunity to get a green card, you wouldn’t detain them, much less execute the removal order,” Gividen told AP.

JP Caballero, a spokesperson for US Rep. Veronica Escobar, said Escobar had opened a congressional inquiry into Villafranca-Trejo’s case and visited her at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Texas earlier this month.

“My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for,” Escobar told AP in a statement. “There are far too many families like theirs who are being targeted instead of supported.”

Villafranca-Trejo spent time at Camp East Montana, where she was detained following her arrest near Fort Bliss.

The Associated Press has found more than 50 cases in which immediate family members of US troops were placed in federal immigration detention after the Trump administration rolled back protections for military families.

In some cases, DHS released military spouses following media attention and advocacy by congressional leaders, AP reported.

Military Times also cited an August AP report that found more than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members had been detained under the Trump administration, with at least six deported at the time of that report.

Turcios Juarez, who was originally from Honduras, became a US citizen in 2024 after enlisting in the Army two years earlier.

He said he remains uncertain about how he will care for his daughter without his wife and has not yet figured out how to explain what happened to her.

Despite the circumstances, he said he wants to continue serving in the Army.

“I love what I do, I want to keep doing this,” he told AP of his military service. “I just don’t know how I am going to keep doing this.”