EL PASO – A United States Army sergeant with nearly three decades of service, including combat deployment to Afghanistan, is challenging the detention of his wife by federal immigration agents, highlighting a growing friction between the Trump administration’s deportation mandates and the stability of military households.
Sgt. First Class Jose Serrano, 51, reports that his wife, Deisy Rivera Ortega, a Salvadoran national, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers during an appointment at an immigration office in El Paso, Texas. The arrest has sparked a legal battle over the definition of criminal priority and the protections afforded to the spouses of long-serving military personnel.
The incident underscores a systemic tension within the U.S. security apparatus, where the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) aggressive pursuit of removal targets has increasingly intersected with the lives of active-duty service members. While administration officials have frequently stated that immigration crackdowns prioritize the removal of dangerous criminals, the detention of family members of veterans-often for administrative or misdemeanor offenses-suggests a broader application of enforcement that disregards military service records.
The Conflict of Legal Status
Rivera Ortega, who married Serrano in 2022 and has resided in the U.S. since 2016, was reportedly operating under legal protection granted in 2019, including permission to remain in the country while her case moved through the immigration system. According to Serrano, his wife had adhered strictly to all immigration protocols, appearing for check-ins and keeping her address current with authorities.
“I don’t really understand why, because she followed the rules of immigration by the T since day one,” Serrano told CBS News.
However, the DHS has characterized the case differently. In statements provided to the media, the department asserted that Rivera Ortega entered the U.S. illegally and was issued a deportation order on December 12, 2019. DHS officials labeled her a “criminal illegal alien,” citing a conviction for illegal entry-a federal misdemeanor under Section 1325 of the Immigration and Nationality Act-as the basis for her status.
Attorneys for the couple argue that such a designation obscures key distinctions between civil immigration violations and serious criminal conduct, and say the use of the term “criminal” in this context allows ICE to treat a low-level border offense as a standing justification for detention years later.
Matthew Kozik, a combat veteran, Bronze Star recipient, and former Army judge advocate now representing the couple, has filed a court petition claiming the detention was illegal. Kozik described the current state of affairs as “absurd,” arguing that the application of the law in this instance ignores the nuances of the subject’s legal history, her lack of a violent record and her ties to a career soldier.
For Serrano, the arrest is not merely a legal dispute but a personal crisis that threatens his mental health and professional stability. A survivor of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Serrano reported sleeping only two hours a night since the arrest. He also noted that military travel restrictions may prevent him from visiting his wife if she is removed to Mexico-a country he maintains she has no connection to and where she has no family support network.
“I love the army. [The] army helped me out for almost 28 years. It’s not the army, sir. It’s ICE,” Serrano said. “ICE is out of control right now, sir, taking away rights, as soldiers, that we have.”
A Pattern of Military Family Detentions
The case of Rivera Ortega is not an isolated occurrence. Recent months have seen a series of high-profile detentions involving the spouses and children of U.S. service members, often involving complex legal loopholes or long-standing deportation orders that resurfaced when individuals tried to regularize their status.
- The Case of Annie Ramos: A biochemistry student and Sunday school teacher, Ramos was detained by ICE at a Louisiana military base while her husband, Sgt. Matthew Blank, was preparing for deployment. Ramos had received a deportation order “in absentia” in 2005, when she was an infant and her family had missed a hearing. She was released following significant media coverage and public pressure, but her case highlighted how decades-old paperwork errors can suddenly become grounds for detention when spouses present themselves to authorities.
- The Case of Jermaine Thomas: In May 2025, the son of a U.S. military veteran was deported to Jamaica. Thomas, born on a U.S. military base in Germany, found himself effectively stateless. Despite his birth on a federal installation, authorities claimed he was not a citizen and cited prior criminal convictions to justify his removal, underscoring how gaps in nationality law can collide with zero-tolerance enforcement priorities.
Advocates for military families say such cases have a chilling effect, discouraging undocumented spouses from attending scheduled appointments or cooperating with immigration officers for fear that routine processing will convert into immediate detention.
Institutional Jurisdictions
The friction highlighted by these cases stems from the disparate missions of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). While the Army focuses on readiness and the retention of experienced NCOs like Sgt. First Class Serrano, ICE operates under a mandate of enforcement and removal that does not inherently grant exemptions for military affiliation, even in households directly supporting overseas deployments.
Under DHS policy, ICE asserts broad authority to detain noncitizens it deems a flight risk or public safety concern and to hold them in a network of civil detention centers across the country, many of them operated under contract with local jails or private prison companies. Interactive mapping by advocacy groups shows that more than 200 such sites are currently used for immigration detention, underscoring the scale and reach of this infrastructure.
Legal experts note that “in absentia” orders-such as the one that affected Annie Ramos-are a common tool for ICE, but their application to individuals who entered the country as children or who have since married U.S. citizens often leads to protracted litigation regarding “due process,” notice and the right to reopen old cases. Critics argue that the use of old or technical violations against military family members sits uneasily beside official Pentagon efforts to support service-member mental health and family stability.
The U.S. Army has declined to intervene in the specifics of the case, referring all inquiries to the DHS. Neither DHS nor ICE has provided further comment regarding the specific legal justification for the timing of Rivera Ortega’s arrest during a scheduled immigration appointment, or whether her connection to an active-duty soldier was weighed in the decision to detain her.
For now, Serrano continues to report for duty in El Paso while his attorney presses the courts for relief. The outcome will be closely watched by military families with mixed immigration status, and by policymakers weighing how aggressively immigration enforcement should reach into the homes of those in uniform.
