The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo, the wife of an active-duty Army sergeant, to Honduras on Monday. The removal is part of an immigration policy shift under the Trump administration that has reduced protections previously afforded to the immediate family members of U.S. service personnel.
DHS stated that Villafranca-Trejo, who entered the U.S. at age 18 in 2016 to escape violent crime, had "received due process" before her removal. According to the agency, she was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2017 after failing to appear at a hearing. Her husband, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, stated she never received notice of that hearing and only learned of the order in 2022 while applying for a green card.
Villafranca-Trejo was detained on July 11 outside a Walmart in Fort Bliss, Texas. At the time of her deportation, she had a pending application for military parole-in-place, a program that allows immediate family of U.S. troops to stay in the country while seeking legal residency. Turcios Juarez, a U.S. citizen who enlisted in 2022, reported that he has had to skip military training to care for their 6-year-old daughter and has postponed a new assignment.
The Associated Press reports that Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty service member to be deported during the current administration. Additionally, more than 50 immediate family members of U.S. troops have been placed in federal immigration detention. In a separate instance this week, Joshua Aviles, a Navy sailor deployed on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, reported that his father, Luis Manuel Aviles, was detained despite holding a work permit and Social Security card.
The day-to-day impact on affected service members includes a conflict between military duties and family care. Sgt. Turcios Juarez described a choice between fulfilling military responsibilities and caring for his 6-year-old daughter alone, stating he did not know if he could continue his service under these conditions. On the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, where sailors are already working 12-hour shifts during a deployment to the Middle East, such detentions have been linked by service members to declining morale and mental strain during active operations.
The enforcement signals a precedent where military service no longer guarantees the administrative protection of undocumented family members from removal. This impacts the effectiveness of military parole-in-place, a program intended to provide stability for those in uniform. While DHS maintains that these individuals are receiving due process under existing law, the removal of family members while their applications for residency are pending creates a period of family separation. It is not yet known if the administration will review the pending parole-in-place applications for those already deported or if additional military families will be targeted in the coming weeks.