Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez got the call at 3:40 a.m. Tuesday: his wife, Cristy Maryori Villafranca Trejo, was already aboard a plane bound for Honduras. Their six-year-old daughter was home. He was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, with no one to hand her to.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the removal in a written statement. "On August 24, Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo, an illegal alien from Honduras, was removed from the United States in accordance with our laws," a DHS spokesperson said. ICE conducted a targeted enforcement operation to arrest her on July 11.
Turcios Juarez has been managing his military duties as a sole parent since that July arrest, when ICE agents detained Villafranca Trejo outside a Walmart near Fort Bliss as their daughter watched. Villafranca Trejo left Honduras in 2016 because of violent crime. DHS said she entered the United States illegally that year and was released under the Obama administration.
The couple married in 2022. Villafranca Trejo did not realize she had a deportation order against her until she and her husband applied for her green card after the wedding — she said she had never received notice of the immigration hearing she missed. Turcios Juarez became a U.S. citizen in 2024 after a nine-month deployment to the Middle East and had begun pursuing naturalization for his wife under the belief that his military service would help expedite the process.
"She's been a very supportive wife since the first day that I decided to join the military. I was deployed for nine months. She took care of my family," Turcios said when she was first detained in July. "She's not a threat to anybody. We're just trying to keep our family together."
An ABC News review of state and federal records found no criminal history for any of the military spouses named in its investigation. That finding contradicts one of the administration's central public arguments: President Trump has repeatedly said ICE targets "the worst of the worst" and has described undocumented immigrants as animals and dangerous criminals.
The Turcios family is part of a larger pattern. Trump's mass deportation campaign has detained more than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members during his second term, with at least six deported, according to an Associated Press investigation. The numbers challenge the administration's stated position that enforcement actions are narrowly targeted at dangerous individuals.
Danitza James, CEO of Repatriate Our Patriots, an organization that helps service members and veterans reunite with detained relatives, said her group's options are limited. Beyond arranging legal representation, the only remaining tool is calling Congress to ask for intervention. As of Aug. 20, James said she was working with eight active-duty service members and one veteran whose family members were in detention.
Repatriate Our Patriots describes the situation starkly. An advocacy statement from the group said some military families are now "living in the shadows" — unwilling to draw attention to themselves even as a family member sits in federal custody.
Turcios Juarez grew up in the United States after attending high school here, then enlisted in the Army and earned citizenship through his service. His path — immigrant background, Middle East deployment, naturalization, then an attempt to bring his wife through legal channels — mirrors the stories of thousands of foreign-born service members. The administration has not offered a public exception or deferral policy for cases involving active-duty personnel whose spouses lack legal status.
Congress has not passed legislation creating a specific carve-out for military families in immigration enforcement. Calls to individual members from groups like Repatriate Our Patriots have not produced a legislative response as of this reporting. The administration has not publicly addressed whether it will review enforcement policies as they apply to the immediate families of deployed or active-duty troops.
