ICE Detains Another Army Wife at Immigration Appointment — And Military Families Are Sounding the Alarm.
Jose Serrano, a sergeant, said Deisy Rivera Ortega, his wife, was arrested at an immigration appointment
A woman walked into an immigration office in Texas, following the rules, showing up as required.
She never walked back out.
Deisy Rivera Ortega, the wife of a U.S. Army sergeant, was detained by federal immigration agents during a scheduled appointment in El Paso—an incident that is now fueling outrage and deep concern among military families who feel increasingly targeted by an immigration system they once trusted.
Her husband, Sgt. First Class Jose Serrano has spent 27 years serving the United States, including a deployment to Afghanistan. But none of that mattered the day ICE took his wife.
“I don’t understand it,” Serrano said in an interview. “She’s followed the rules since day one.”
Rivera Ortega, originally from El Salvador, has been living in the U.S. since 2016. She married Serrano in 2022 and had previously received legal protection in 2019 that prevents her deportation to El Salvador. She also held a valid work permit at the time of her arrest.
Still, she was detained.
The Department of Homeland Security argues that Rivera Ortega entered the country without authorization and had been ordered deported years earlier. Officials have labeled her a “criminal,” pointing to a misdemeanor charge for illegal entry.
But for Serrano—and for many watching this unfold—that explanation doesn’t match reality.
This wasn’t a dangerous criminal being taken off the streets. This was a woman attending a legal appointment. A wife. A partner in a military family.
And she is not alone.
Across the country, similar stories are surfacing—stories that directly contradict earlier claims that immigration enforcement would focus on serious threats to public safety. Instead, the crackdown is reaching into the lives of those connected to the very people who serve the nation.
In another case, ICE agents arrested Annie Ramos, the wife of an Army sergeant, on a military base in Louisiana—just days after their wedding. Her husband was preparing for deployment when agents took her into custody.
Ramos had no criminal record. She was a biochemistry student and a Sunday school teacher. Her deportation order dated back to 2005, when she was still a baby.
After public pressure and media attention, she was eventually released.
But the pattern is becoming impossible to ignore.
Even children of military families are being swept up. In 2025, Jermaine Thomas—the son of a U.S. veteran—was deported to Jamaica, a country where he has no real ties. Born on a U.S. Army base in Germany, Thomas was ruled not to be an American citizen, leaving him effectively stateless.
These are not isolated incidents. They are signals of a system expanding its reach—with little regard for the human cost.
Serrano is now living that cost in real time.
He says he’s barely sleeping—just two hours a night—since his wife was taken. Already dealing with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder from his years in service, he now faces a new kind of battle: one at home.
And the reality is cruelly complicated.
If Rivera Ortega is deported, she may not even be sent back to El Salvador—the country she knows—but to Mexico, where she has no family, no support system, no connections.
“We don’t know anybody in Mexico,” Serrano said.
Even visiting her could be impossible. Military restrictions could prevent him from traveling, leaving them separated indefinitely.
His attorney, a decorated Army veteran himself, didn’t mince words: “This is absurd.”
Serrano, too, drew a line between the institution he has served and what he is witnessing now.
“I love the Army,” he said. “It’s not the Army. It’s ICE.”
Then he said what more and more families are beginning to feel:
“ICE is out of control.”
This is the reality many women in immigrant families are now facing—detained not because they pose a threat, but because policy has shifted faster than protection.
They are showing up. Following instructions. Building lives.
And still, they are being taken.
For military families, the message is becoming painfully clear: service does not guarantee safety for the people you love.
And for women like Deisy Rivera Ortega, the question remains—