Veteran Battles to Prevent Wife’s Deportation by ICE

Retired staff sergeant Wilmer Trujillo, who served nearly 20 years in the U.S. Army and Texas National Guard, is facing a challenging personal battle. Trujillo is pleading with the government he served to prevent his wife from being deported. He shared his distress with CBS News from his home in Princeton, Texas, expressing that the situation makes him feel physically ill.

Trujillo’s wife, Arelys Barahona-Martinez, originally from Honduras, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a routine check-in appointment. Up until her unexpected arrest on June 10, she regularly followed ICE’s check-in procedures without incident. Though she has no criminal record, immigration officials pointed to her illegal entries into the U.S. in 2005 and 2018, citing a deportation order from 2005.

Barahona-Martinez is among several relatives of U.S. military personnel apprehended as part of mass deportation policies. During a video call from within the ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, she expressed feeling wrongly judged as a criminal. With tears, she asked to be with her family to address her immigration process.

Barahona-Martinez could potentially secure a green card through her marriage to Trujillo, a U.S. citizen. This would require an immigration judge to reopen her deportation case and for the government to overlook her illegal entries via parole-in-place, a program intended to protect military families from deportation. It remains uncertain if ICE will allow her to pursue this process while not in detention.

The couple met in 2019, a year after Barahona-Martinez returned to the U.S. She had left previously in 2006 but came back due to concerns for her U.S.-born son, Idben. He faced threats from gangs in Honduras and required treatment for a genetic condition, neurofibromatosis, that results in tumors. Her return was motivated by the life-threatening situation of her son.

Living with Trujillo, Idben describes the household as empty without his mother. The relationship between Trujillo, his daughters, Barahona-Martinez, and Idben has grown considerably over the years. “She came to this country just to save my life,” Idben shared in reference to his health struggles.