U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Arelys Barahona Martinez, a 40-year-old Honduran woman, on Wednesday after she and her husband arrived for a scheduled immigration check-in at an ICE office in Dallas, Texas. She was subsequently transferred to a detention facility in Oklahoma.
Barahona Martinez is the wife of retired Staff Sergeant Wilmer Trujillo, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Colombia who served nearly 20 years in the U.S. Army and Texas National Guard and completed two tours in Iraq. The couple married in 2020 and live in Princeton, Texas.
“We thought everything was fine, until an officer came out and said, ‘Your wife is not leaving today,’” Trujillo told the BBC.
Trujillo said he and his wife had always tried to follow the law regarding her immigration status. “To us, it was as a regular check-up day, we were always doing everything by the book,” he said. “I told her to do everything by the book. I’m by-the-book, I’ve been brought up military.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Barahona Martinez’s arrest and said she had illegally entered the United States in 2005 and was subsequently released. Barahona Martinez “received full due process and was issued a final order of removal from an immigration judge on November 2, 2005,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The Trump administration is not going to ignore the rule of law. She will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the US.”
Mark Shmueli, Barahona Martinez’s attorney, told the BBC that his client was unaware of the 2005 removal order at the time it was issued. After returning to the U.S. illegally in 2018, immigration authorities granted her a supervised release, he said. She has no criminal record in the U.S., according to public documents.
After marrying Trujillo in 2020, Barahona Martinez applied for parole in place, a program that allows certain people who entered the U.S. without authorization to obtain legal residency. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services denied the application in November 2024, during the Biden administration, saying the request needed to go through ICE because she still had an active removal order. Shmueli had been working to have the 2005 order rescinded.
“I didn’t expect this to happen to her yesterday,” Shmueli told the BBC. “I don’t understand why after all this time, why they detained her. Because I’ve seen the opposite with military folks.”
Shmueli filed a motion in a Texas court to prevent her deportation until a judge can hear the case. ICE acknowledged the motion on Friday and indicated the case could be eligible for a stay.
Barahona Martinez is at least the third military spouse ICE has detained during a scheduled appointment in recent months. In April, ICE detained Deisy Rivera Ortega, the wife of an active-duty U.S. Army soldier in El Paso, Texas, after she and her husband went for a parole-in-place interview. DHS said at the time that Rivera Ortega was a “criminal illegal alien from El Salvador.” Also in April, ICE detained Annie Ramos, the newlywed wife of an active-duty soldier, when she and her husband went to obtain her military ID; she spent five days in custody before being released.
Immigration advocates and the string of detentions point to a shift in enforcement posture. During the Biden administration, ICE issued a directive that considered active service by a noncitizen’s immediate family a “significant mitigating factor” in enforcement decisions.
“Basically: You better have a good reason for arresting the spouse of a military member if you do,” said Rachel Girod, an immigration attorney.
In April 2025, under the Trump administration, ICE superseded that directive. A new memorandum included guidance for active-duty military members but did not mention family members.
“DHS and ICE value the contributions of all those who have served in the U.S. military,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “U.S. military service alone does not automatically grant lawful immigration status, or exempt aliens from the consequences of violating immigration laws.”
Data provided to U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren showed that between January 2025 and January 2026, USCIS issued 113 notices to appear — charging documents that initiate removal proceedings — to immediate relatives of former U.S. service members who had their parole in place requests denied. ICE placed a total of 282 former service members and their immediate family members in removal proceedings over the same period.
Trujillo said he was “proud to be a Texan, and American,” but that his wife’s detention had left him “speechless.” He said he knew he was not the only service member in this position.
“I just don’t understand, we have a family here, and they’re breaking us up,” Trujillo told the BBC.
Barahona Martinez and Trujillo met at a nightclub in 2019, he recalled. He asked her to dance, and she told him to ask again in 15 minutes. “Those 15 minutes went by, and we danced. And ever since we danced, we’ve been together,” he said. “We always laugh about it: ‘I’m glad I gave you those 15 minutes.’”