“[Recruiters] basically told me that if you serve, and if you served honorably, you can help your parents,” said one service member. His mom was detained and deported last August
The Trump administration has targeted, detained, or deported dozens of U.S. military family members since January 2025, a shocking new investigation by the AP reveals.
“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 and one self-deported, the AP found in the first accounting of such detentions, which the government does not track,” the report said. “At least eight immediate family members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody.”
SHOCKING: SIX-YEAR-OLD CHILD OF SERVICE MEMBER WITNESSES MOTHER’S ABDUCTION BY ICE
U.S. military family members currently locked up by the U.S. government include Cristy, the wife of Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez. Turcios Juarez was at his base in Texas when Cristy was swept up by mass deportation agents while out shopping in July. The couple’s six-year-old daughter witnessed the abduction. That same month, Army Staff Sgt. Alexis Jaramillo’s wife, Maisa Lopes Eliaser, was also detained after trying to follow the rules by attending her scheduled immigration appointment.
“Immigration officials asked Jaramillo and his stepson to leave the room,” the AP said. “Minutes later, they were told that Eliaser had been detained. The next time they saw her was inside a detention facility.”
Family members are also getting detained and deported “even as the military continues to recruit by advertising immigration benefits for enlistees’ families,” the report noted. This includes a policy known as “military parole-in-place,” which allows relatives to stay here while pursuing permanent legal status. Marine Cpl. Jose Manuel Vilchis-Valle told the AP that military recruiters touted these sort of benefits while persuading him to enlist. He did, hoping his service could eventually help his mom, Ursula Borja Valle, permanently settle here.
Instead, Borja Valle was abducted while at an immigration appointment and deported within days. She had lived in the U.S. for more than 25 years and had no criminal record that justified her abrupt banishment from her home of decades.
“[Recruiters] basically told me that if you serve, and if you served honorably, you can help your parents,” Vilchis-Valle said. “In a perfect world, I wished, because of my service, they could have pardoned her.”
DISHONEST: U.S. GOVERNMENT BREAKS ITS PROMISE TO SOLDIERS
Not only is the U.S. government breaking its promise to soldiers who are putting everything on the line in service of their country, experts warn that the administration’s reversal of previous policy that said the immigrant relatives of service members should generally be off-limits to immigration enforcement “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.”
Jaramillo is among the latter group. The aviation operations specialist of more than a decade recently had to take a leave of absence to care for his stepson following Lopes Eliaser’s detention. “It is really overwhelming because I need to take care of my kid by myself. No one is here to help me out,” he said. “How can I even focus on my military career because I have to worry about how my wife is doing?” Turcios Juarez asked.
“As a veteran myself, I find the 50+ cases in the AP story to be a sign that our immigration system is so broken and ICE is so out of control that not even people who put their lives on the line in uniform are protected,” commented immigration researcher Austin Kocher. “Many of these spouses and children are literally going through the process they were told to go through—and ICE is still arresting them.”
PUSHBACK: CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS LAUNCH INVESTIGATION
Following the AP’s report, dozens of Congressional Democrats signed a letter “vowing to investigate whether the DOD and DHS were working together to deport military service members and their families,” Military.com reported. They note possible collusion “raises both ethical and legal concerns.”
In its write-up on the letter, the AP reports that lawmakers also “pressed the administration on why military recruiters are still promoting immigration protections” that aren’t actually being enforced in real-life.
“Donald Trump is breaking our country’s promises to service members by tearing apart dozens of military families who were promised immigration protections,” commented Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “That’s just plain cruel, and it’s hurting our military readiness and morale.”
We noted during last year’s Veteran’s Day that the very people who have worn our uniform or lovingly raised those who do have been a target from the very start of the second Trump administration. Who could ever forget landscaper Narciso Barranco’s Marine sons pleading for their dad’s freedom following his abduction last summer? “On his first call to his son after the detainment, Barranco was less concerned with his injuries and more concerned with his job,” the Los Angeles Times reported at the time. “He told him where his truck and equipment were and asked him to speak with his client and finish the job, the younger Barranco said.”
The dad would spend three weeks in detention. He later won a critical court victory paving the way for him to continue his life in the U.S. “In her order terminating the deportation case, signed on Jan. 28, Judge Kristin S. Piepmeier said that Mr. Barranco had provided evidence that he was the father of three American sons in the military, rendering him eligible to obtain lawful status,” The New York Times reported in February.
SHAMEFUL: PURPLE HEART RECIPIENT FORCED TO SELF-DEPORT
Sae Joon Park, himself a U.S. military veteran and Purple Heart recipient, is also fighting to reunite with his family after having no choice but to self-deport to South Korea, a country that he hadn’t considered his home since he was just seven. He’s hoping continued work with his attorney can end up in finding a legal avenue to return back to the country he served but struggles with the language and finding work. He especially struggles with missing home.
“His mother, who lives in Hawaii, suffers from dementia,” Stars and Stripes reported in June. “Fighting back tears, Park said he calls her regularly, but each conversation begins the same way — reminding her that he no longer lives nearby.”
