The wife of a US Army sergeant, Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo, has been deported to Honduras, according to her family and the Department of Homeland Security. She was detained by immigration agents on July 11 outside a Walmart near Fort Bliss, Texas, where her husband, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, is stationed. This makes her at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty US military member to face deportation under President Trump’s immigration policies, as reported by the Associated Press.
Sgt. Turcios Juarez spoke with his wife after her deportation, confirming she was okay. The couple has been legally married since 2022 and shares a six-year-old daughter. Their daughter was in the car when her mother was detained after their shopping trip. Now, Sgt. Turcios Juarez is struggling to balance his military duties with caring for their daughter, having already postponed a planned assignment to another base.
Villafranca-Trejo was listed as a dependent in the Army’s system and was included on Turcios Juarez’s upcoming orders to relocate to Oklahoma. She originally came to the United States from Honduras in 2016, seeking a better life. At the time of her entry, she was 18 and has no known criminal record, according to the AP report.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement stated that Villafranca-Trejo received due process, noting she had been issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2017 after failing to appear at a hearing. However, her husband disputes this, telling the AP that she never received notice of the hearing and didn't know about the deportation order until they applied for her green card after their marriage in 2022.
The couple began an application for her citizenship in 2024 and only then discovered the 2017 removal order stemming from the missed appearance. They were working with legal counsel to appeal the decision. Villafranca-Trejo’s motion to reopen her case was denied in May, and an appeal is still pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals, her attorney confirmed.
Adding to their plight, she had been waiting for about a year for a decision on her application for military parole-in-place, a program designed to allow immediate family members of US troops to stay in the country while their green card applications are processed. Sgt. Turcios Juarez expressed his frustration, stating, “We were following the rules — we did everything we could on our side to fix this problem.”
Before the current administration's policies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement would typically allow immediate family members of US troops to adjust their legal status, even if they had a final removal order. Dan Gividen, who previously served as ICE deputy chief counsel, told the AP that detaining or deporting such individuals was uncommon. "If you’ve got an active-duty military member that’s married to someone now, and that’s going to give her the opportunity to get a green card, you wouldn’t detain them, much less execute the removal order,” he explained.
US Representative Veronica Escobar has opened a congressional inquiry into Villafranca-Trejo’s case and visited her at the Camp East Montana detention facility. "My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for," Escobar stated. “There are far too many families like theirs who are being targeted instead of supported.”
The Associated Press has documented over 50 cases where immediate family members of US troops were detained by federal immigration authorities after the Trump administration scaled back protections for military families. In some instances, such as those involving spouses of military personnel, DHS has released individuals following media attention and intervention from congressional leaders, according to AP reports.