Trump Crackdown Detains 50+ Military Family Members

President Donald Trump’s administration has detained more than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. service members as it rolls back immigration protections for military families, according to an Associated Press investigation. The detentions mark a sharp reversal of decades of bipartisan consensus that shielded military families from deportation enforcement.

At least six relatives have been deported and one self-deported, while at least eight immediate family members of U.S. service members remain in federal immigration custody. The AP’s review is the first accounting of such detentions, which the government does not track, and the actual number is likely much higher than the 52 cases identified.

A Historic Reversal of Protections

Parents and spouses of people in the military have generally been shielded from deportation under bipartisan consensus for decades. The AP found they are now routinely being detained for months as they try to adjust their legal status through policies available to service members’ close relatives.

The policy shift traces back to April 2025, when ICE implemented a new directive stating that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.” This rescinded 2022 Biden-era guidance that treated a family member’s military service as a significant mitigating factor.

Dan Gividen, who served as ICE’s deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019 under Trump, said immigration authorities during his tenure rarely detained service members’ immediate family members unless they had committed violent crimes. He now represents a soldier’s father who has been in ICE custody for more than eight months.

“We would not place them into removal proceedings, period. That’s insane,” Gividen said. “The fact that they’re doing it now is just outrageous.”

Service Members Losing Their Safety Nets

The detentions have left military families without emotional support and caretakers for their children, delaying deployments and forcing some service members to take leave. The Guardian reported that experts warn the reversal could undermine military preparedness even as the U.S. is at war in Iran.

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Wendy Gbeve, 30, said she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since her father, Luis Alberto Ramirez Zavala, was detained by immigration officials last month. Gbeve was present when her father was arrested at a routine interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Missouri about his pending application for legal status. Roughly two weeks later, he was deported to Mexico.

“It’s the most frustrating, helpless feeling,” Gbeve said. Her father’s wife of 30 years, a legal permanent resident, is considering returning to Mexico, which would leave no one to watch Gbeve’s children, ages 2 and 4, if both she and her husband—also in the Air Force—were deployed. “That would be our entire safety net,” she said.

Army Staff Sgt. Alexis Jaramillo, an aviation operations specialist who has served for more than a decade, is now on administrative leave caring for his 5-year-old stepson after his Brazilian wife, Maisa Lopes Eliaser, was detained in early July during what the family thought was a routine appointment at a USCIS office in Alabama. “It is really overwhelming because I need to take care of my kid by myself. No one is here to help me out,” Jaramillo said.

At least one active-duty soldier halted her imminent deployment after her husband was detained by immigration officers, leaving no one to care for their then-5-year-old son, court records show. A judge eventually ordered the husband released.

Military Recruiters Still Promote Immigration Benefits

One of the military’s most highly advertised immigration benefits is “military parole-in-place,” which allows the spouses, children and parents of active-duty service members and veterans to obtain legal immigration status from within the country. The policy was implemented under Republican President George W. Bush during the Iraq War in 2007 and codified under Democratic President Barack Obama.

Under Trump, the average time to receive military parole-in-place has more than doubled to 12 months, according to USCIS data, leaving military families more vulnerable to being placed in ICE custody. Military.com reported that troops’ immediate family members have repeatedly been detained by ICE while applying for parole-in-place or seeking to adjust their status, including during immigration appointments.

Marine Cpl. Jose Manuel Vilchis-Valle’s mother, Ursula Borja Valle, was detained at an appointment in August 2025 and deported to Mexico within a week. She had lived in the U.S. since the 1990s without a known criminal record. Her son was attempting to help her clear up a decades-old removal order through the immigration benefits that military recruiters had used to help persuade him to enlist.

“They basically told me that if you serve, and if you served honorably, you can help your parents,” said Vilchis-Valle, 23, who was honorably discharged shortly after his mother was deported. “In a perfect world, I wished, because of my service, they could have pardoned her.”

In June 2025, the Marine Corps officially stopped advertising enlistment as a way to protect immigrant family members, in response to inquiries from the AP. But recruiters for the Army and the National Guard still promote it. “For some service members, enlisting isn’t just about serving their country,” read an Instagram post published in late July by an official Army recruiter based in California. “It’s also about doing everything they can to help protect their parents who sacrificed everything for them.”

Broader Enforcement Context

The Department of Homeland Security has said it does not compile data on these cases. The AP obtained information by analyzing thousands of federal court records compiled by Habeas Dockets, a project run by the Immigration Justice Transparency Initiative, and by verifying information with family members and attorneys, as detailed in El Paso Matters’ coverage of the investigation.

DHS said at least seven people had been removed from the U.S. before, at least eight had removal orders and at least two had drunken-driving or drug-related convictions. “DHS and ICE value the contributions of all those who have served in the U.S. military,” DHS said in a statement. “U.S. military service alone does not automatically grant lawful immigration status, or exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.” The Pentagon declined to comment.

For former service members, DHS data shows immigration authorities detained 125 military veterans—placing 34 into removal proceedings—and arrested more than 150 immediate family members between Jan. 20, 2025, and Jan. 26, 2026. Organizations that help military families facing deportation, including Repatriate Our Patriots, called the AP’s findings alarming, as MPR News reported.

A Soldier’s Regret

For U.S. Army Specialist Romero Ralios, his father’s detention has left him remorseful about his deployment last year to the Joint Task Force Southern Border, where he spent nine months supporting U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. His father, Sebastian Ralios Tino, a Guatemalan landscaper with no known criminal record, was detained this summer after living in the U.S. for nearly two decades without legal status.

“It was karma. I should’ve known,” Ralios told the AP. “All those families I broke. I have regrets.”

Ralios’ commanding officer, Capt. Mohamed Elmaola, said it is “very hard to communicate and to have credibility as a leader when your own subordinates are unable to get support.”

Congressional Response and What’s Next

Even some congressional Republicans who support Trump’s immigration crackdown have pushed for the release of service members’ relatives. Florida Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar held a news conference in July advocating for the release of the wife of retired Staff Sgt. Wilmer Trujillo, saying “the immigration system is failing the honorable and good Americans.”

California Rep. Gil Cisneros, a former undersecretary of defense for personnel who introduced legislation aimed at making it harder to deny parole to troops’ relatives, said: “This administration just doesn’t care, and they are not thinking about people who are putting their lives on the line for the country and to defend our nation.”

The Latin Times noted that the readiness argument carries added weight now that the U.S. has been engaged in active military conflict with Iran since late February 2026. Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney and retired lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, warned that soldiers preoccupied with detained or deported family members “are not concentrating on their job anymore.”

As the administration continues its mass deportation agenda, the question of how the military balances recruitment promises with enforcement realities remains unresolved. For the families caught in between, the consequences are deeply personal—and, as Tony Tran, a father and father-in-law of service members who was deported to Vietnam in July, put it: “Whatever your family have done for this country, to keep this country safe, to give the people, Americans, the freedom to walk around and to sleep safe at night, well, we don’t care about that.”