A 27-year Army veteran is speaking out after federal immigration agents reportedly arrested his wife at a routine immigration office visit in El Paso, Texas.
Deisy Rivera Ortega, a 27-year-old from El Salvador, has been living in the United States since 2016 and is married to Sergeant First Class Jose Serrano, a US Army veteran who has served for 27 years.
According to CBS News, Rivera Ortega had a valid work permit and was working at two hotels inside Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, when she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on April 14.
She had gone to the immigration office for an interview related to a Parole in Place application, which is meant to help military spouses who do not have legal status by offering protection from deportation and a possible path to permanent residency.
Despite having legal protections, including protection under the Convention Against Torture, Rivera Ortega was detained and is still being held at ICE's El Paso processing center.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims that Rivera Ortega entered the US illegally and was ordered to be deported in 2019, but her lawyer argues that her detention is not legal.
