Army Wife Deported: What Military Families Can Do Now

Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty US soldier deported under the Trump administration's current immigration enforcement push. The Associated Press identified more than 50 cases where immediate family members of US troops were placed in federal immigration detention after the administration rolled back protections that had shielded military families from removal.

How a missed hearing in 2017 led to deportation in 2026

Villafranca-Trejo entered the US in 2016 at age 18. An immigration judge issued a final order of removal against her in 2017 after she failed to appear at a hearing. Her husband, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, says she never received notice of that hearing and did not learn about the removal order until 2022 — when they applied for her green card after getting married. Turcios Juarez, originally from Honduras, became a US citizen in 2024 after enlisting two years earlier. The couple had been waiting roughly a year for a decision on her military parole-in-place application, a program that lets immediate family members of US troops stay in the country while applying for a green card. Her motion to reopen the case was denied last May. An appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals was still pending when she was deported.

DHS confirmed the deportation and said she had "received due process." But Dan Gividen, who served as ICE deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019 under Trump, told reporters that under previous practice — including during Trump's first term — ICE would not detain or deport the spouse of an active-duty service member if that person had a path to a green card. "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 said. Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, a Democrat representing El Paso, opened a congressional inquiry into the case and visited Villafranca-Trejo at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Texas before the deportation. In some earlier cases, DHS released military spouses after media attention and congressional advocacy — but that did not happen here.

Turcios Juarez says the situation is already affecting his military service. He has had to postpone a planned assignment at another base and now takes his daughter to first grade each morning instead of training. "I don't know if I will be able to continue with this," he said of his army career.

What to do

• If you are the immediate family member of an active-duty US service member and have a removal order, apply for military parole-in-place immediately — this program lets you stay in the US while pursuing a green card, but approval is not guaranteed and processing times vary.
• If you missed an immigration court hearing and received a removal order in absentia (meaning you were not there), ask an immigration lawyer about filing a motion to reopen your case. Courts may reopen cases if you can show you never received proper notice of the hearing.
• Contact your congressional representative's office. In several cases involving military families, congressional inquiries have led DHS to release detained spouses — ask your representative to open a congressional inquiry if you or a family member is detained.
• If a removal order is already final and an appeal is pending at the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), tell your lawyer to request a stay of removal — a temporary halt to deportation while the appeal is decided. A stay is not automatic; you must ask for it.

What to do, step by step — see our guide “Deportation Defense”.