When masked agents pounded on the windows of the family vehicle, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juárez’s six-year-old daughter started crying.
She sat, buckled into her car seat, as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered the windows rolled down and announced they would be detaining Cristy Maryori Villafranca Trejo — the child’s mother and Turcios’s wife — for a missed court appearance.
The child watched as the figures handcuffed her mother.
“It took me a minute to realize what was going on — my heart just dropped,” Turcios told Military Times about the encounter. “It was very hard looking at my daughter crying because of what was going on and not being able to do something and keep my family together.”
On July 11, ICE detained Villafranca Trejo as the family drove home after a trip to Walmart. Turcios said he observed a vehicle following his family out of their military housing subdivision on the way to the store and then, when the family left Walmart, it reappeared.
He was pulled over shortly after, the sergeant said, as unmarked vehicles boxed in the family’s Dodge Durango.
“All I was trying to do was stay calm because my daughter was watching everything that was going on and that was already a lot for her,” he said more than a month after his wife was detained. “She’s only six, and she was going through a lot. She’s still going through a lot right now.”
Turcios, who is stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, has been legally married to Villafranca Trejo since August 2022, according to the couple’s Louisiana marriage certificate. His wife is registered as his dependent in the Army’s personnel system, along with her son and the daughter the couple share. Prior to her detention, the family of four was preparing for a military move to an Oklahoma base where Turcios was set to be stationed.
Instead of preparing to report to his new unit, Turcios said he visited his wife at Camp East Montana, an immigration detention center located on the Fort Bliss grounds.
A July report published by Human Rights Watch, a New York-based international nonprofit, in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union, found that detainees at the camp were subjected to excessive use of force, medical neglect, barriers to legal assistance and “conditions of confinement that amounted to enforced disappearance.”
Turcios said his wife had experienced an infection. He told Military Times that she was concerned the underwear she had been given was not clean. She also said she had to wear the same clothes for about a week. Human Rights Watch reported accounts of laundry at the facility being returned irregularly and dirty.
As of publication, Villafranca Trejo had not received updates on her status.
“They don’t give us any updates on her case. They’re completely silent from their part — like nobody at all,” he said. “They don’t communicate with my lawyer. They don’t communicate with my wife. They don’t communicate with me. We don’t know what’s going on.”
After his Monday visit last week, authorities tried to deport his wife. They woke her up in the middle of the night, he said, and took her to the airport. Turcios said Villafranca Trejo had a panic attack trying to explain that her appeal was in process and her husband was in the military.
Turcios received a call in the early morning hours asking him to verify her account. Another call came later in the morning saying that authorities had verified his wife’s status and she would be returned to the detention camp.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed that on Aug. 17, Villafranca Trejo “was removed from her scheduled deportation flight after a legal impediment developed.”
In response to questions about her July apprehension, the department responded that on the date in question, “ICE conducted a targeted immigration enforcement operation to arrest Cristy Maryori Villafranca Trejo, an illegal alien from Honduras. Villafranca Trejo illegally entered the United States in 2016 and was released into the country under the Obama administration.”
The statement also added, “Being in detention is a choice.”
Turcios said that his wife, who was born in Honduras, came to the United States looking for “a better life,” before the couple met in late 2018.
He said his wife believed her case had been closed after a series of initial appointments in the early years after her arrival. When the couple began applying for her citizenship in 2024, Turcios said they learned that a missed appearance had led to the issuance of a removal order in 2017.
The couple immediately began working with legal counsel to appeal.
Efrain Diaz-Carrasquillo, an attorney working on Villafranca Trejo’s case, said even though the case is being appealed, her detention is technically legal. She was likely detained because her name popped up in ICE’s system, he said, and because ICE is authorized to detain her, they did.
“The fact that ICE has, or is entitled to detain her doesn’t mean they have to,” he said, adding she has no criminal record. “She married an American citizen, and they are trying to adjust her status in USCIS,” Diaz-Carrasquillo said, referring to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, the federal agency that processes residency and citizenship authorizations.
“She’s doing everything possible to adjust her status and be legal in the United States,” he said, but her case could take years.
Turcios, who deployed to the Middle East in 2023, said the unexpected detention has upended his family’s life and made fulfilling his duties as a noncommissioned officer difficult.
He said Villafranca Trejo supported him throughout his career and was the mainstay of his military family care plan, a formal document detailing who will care for a soldier’s dependents during a deployment. Without her, he is essentially a single parent, responsible for school drop-offs and leading soldiers.
Military Times spoke with an active-duty soldier who worked with Turcios, who described the noncommissioned officer as approachable and dependable.
“You can see the results of his leadership in his soldiers,” said the soldier, who was granted anonymity for fear of reprisal. “They’re consistently on time, prepared, know what they’re supposed to be doing, and are ready to execute whatever mission or task is put in front of them.”
When ICE pulled the family’s vehicle over, Turcios said his patrol cap — marked with sweat from extensive wear in uniform — was on the dashboard. Despite the ordeal, the soldier said his wife’s detainment has not changed his feelings about his service.
“I love this country, and I’m proud of serving in the Army,” he said, adding that his wife supports his career wholeheartedly.
The situation faced by Turcios’s family, however, is becoming more common.
An Associated Press report published in August found that more than 50 parents and spouses of active-duty service members had been detained under the Trump administration, and at least six have been deported.
In response to the AP’s investigation, over 60 lawmakers penned a letter announcing the launch of an investigation into whether or not the Pentagon is coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security to deport military members and their families.
In the letter, lawmakers said reports suggested the two agencies were collaborating “to identify and detain non-citizens during routine check-ins, visits, and drop-offs at military installations — converting military bases into ‘traps’ for individuals this Administration deems deportable, all while DoD continues to recruit new service members with the promise of immigration protections.”
Though military spouses and close family members are not guaranteed legal residency or citizenship, spouses have historically been offered programs like Military Parole in Place, which grants legal temporary residence to a service member’s undocumented family.
The Pentagon did not respond to questions from Military Times about whether DoD tracks immediate family members who have been detained or deported, or if it has assessed the effects on readiness.
Asked about resources available to soldiers should their family members be detained, a Pentagon official said in a statement, “We would refer you to the military service departments, as each service provides varying but limited legal assistance in line with federal law.”
Turcios, meanwhile, said he is paying out of pocket for his family’s legal assistance.
For now, he makes appointments to visit his wife. They speak through a window and cannot touch.
The couple’s daughter, who watched her mother’s arrest from the back seat, often wonders aloud about her. The child started school this year without Villafranca Trejo.
“She asks me every day, ‘When is my mom coming back home?’ and I don’t have an answer to that,” Turcios said. “It’s just heartbreaking for me, just looking at her and not being able to give her an answer when her mom is coming back to our family.”
Eve Sampson is a reporter and former Army officer. She has covered conflict across the world, writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.
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