Marine Veteran's Wife Detained by ICE Right in Front of Him During a Green Card Application Meeting

A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps witnessed his wife being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while attending a meeting for her green card application.

Paola Clouatre, 25, came from Mexico with her mother more than 10 years ago. However, Paola and her mother are no longer close, so she was not aware that after her mother missed an immigration hearing, she was named in an order for deportation, the Associated Press reported.

After marrying Adrian Clouatre, 26, last year, Paola began attempting to secure a green card, which is when he said she learned of the deportation order. But when the pair went to Paola's green card meeting on May 27 in Louisiana, they were told to take a seat after being questioned about the deportation order.

Moments later, Paola was taking off her wedding ring to give to Adrian to hold on to as she was detained by ICE.

"I'm all for 'get the criminals out of the country,' right?" Adrian told the outlet. "But the people that are here working hard, especially the ones married to Americans — I mean, that's always been a way to secure a green card."

Adrian and Paola met during his last few months of service in California. Two years later they were married, and now share a 2-year-old son and a 3-month-old daughter, who Paola had still been breastfeeding at the time of her detainment.

Detaining migrants at immigration hearings has become increasingly common among ICE agents. Earlier this month, 20 people were detained at routine immigration check-ins in Chicago.

Even those already holding green cards have been caught up in the raids. In May, a green card holder for more than 50 years was detained in California after returning from visiting his Air Force son stationed in Japan. In April, a green card holder was detained during his scheduled naturalization interview.

The detainments come as President Donald Trump pushes forward on his campaign promise of "mass deportations," aiming to reach 1 million deportations by the end of the year.