The Honduran wife of a US veteran was detained during a scheduled immigration appointment in Dallas, Texas, marking the third case of a military spouse being arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in recent months. Arelys Barahona Martinez, originally from Honduras, first crossed the US border in 2005. She later left the US and returned in 2018, both times without legal authorization.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed the arrest, stating that Barahona Martinez is an illegal immigrant and that the arrest was lawful. However, her family claims she was in the middle of an appeal. Her husband, retired Staff Sergeant Wilmer Trujillo, expressed his distress to the BBC: "I just don't understand, we have a family here, and they're breaking us up. They're breaking my family up. She's my backbone."
The couple married in 2020. Barahona Martinez has a 20-year-old son from a previous marriage, while Trujillo has two daughters from his prior relationship. A DHS spokesperson stated that Barahona Martinez "received full due process and was issued a final order of removal from an immigration judge on November 2, 2005. The Trump administration is not going to ignore the rule of law. She will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the US."
On Wednesday, Trujillo accompanied Barahona Martinez to an immigration check-in and waited while she met with officers. "To us, it was a regular check-up day; we were always doing everything by the book," Trujillo said. "I told her to do everything by the book. I'm by-the-book, I've been brought up military." Although Martinez entered the US illegally, she applied for the parole in place program, but it was rejected in November 2024. Trujillo is a naturalized US citizen originally from Colombia.
In April, ICE detained and later released Deisy Rivera Ortega, the wife of an active-duty US Army soldier in Texas, after she and her husband attended an interview for the parole-in-place program. DHS stated that Rivera Ortega was a "criminal illegal alien from El Salvador" who committed a "federal offence" by entering the US illegally via the southern border in 2016. ICE also detained Annie Ramos, the newlywed wife of an active duty US soldier, in April when she and her husband went to obtain her military ID. She spent five days in detention before release. Ramos is an undocumented immigrant who came to the US as a toddler, and DHS has said she does not have legal status.
