ICE Detains Immigrant Wife of Army Sergeant on U.S. Military Base in Louisiana, Family Speaks Out

A U.S. Army staff sergeant says his wife was "ripped away" by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at a Louisiana military base, despite the couple taking steps to regularize her immigration status through marriage.

Annie Ramos, 22, an undocumented immigrant brought to the United States from Honduras as a toddler, was detained last week at Fort Polk after she and her husband, Sgt. Matthew Blank, arrived for an appointment to obtain her military spouse identification. The couple had recently married and were preparing to file her application for legal permanent residency.

"Our plan was to drive over, bring her to the office to get her military ID, and activate her military spouse benefits," Blank told The New York Times over the weekend. "She was going to move in after the Easter weekend. Instead, she got ripped away from me."

"I knew she didn't have status," Blank added. "We were doing everything the right way."

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Ramos "has no legal status to be in this country" and had been issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2005, when she was a toddler. "This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law," the agency said in a statement to The Times.

"Prior to the Trump administration creating a mass deportation policy, somebody like her would not have been detained," said Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and former Army Reserve officer.

Ramos, who has no criminal record and was months away from completing a bachelor's degree in biochemistry, is now being held at a detention facility in Basile, Louisiana. "I grew up here like any American," she said in a call from detention with The New York Times. "This is all I know. My husband and family are here."

According to the family, the detention followed a routine check-in at the base visitor center, where Ramos presented her passport, birth certificate and marriage license. After she acknowledged she did not yet have a visa or green card, base personnel contacted federal authorities. She was later handcuffed and taken into custody.

"This is not who we should be," former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote on Blusky as Raw Story reports, adding that authorities appear to be detaining "a woman who is legally applying for her green card" despite having no criminal history.

Others, including leaders of faith-based organizations, said the case underscores growing concerns about how enforcement actions are being carried out in practice. "Seems neighborhoods need to organize for tactical peaceful counter response to such thugs," Reverend Miguel Rivera of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders posted on X.