Army veteran pleads for release of wife detained by ICE in Dallas

A retired Army and Texas National Guard staff sergeant is asking federal immigration officials to release his wife after she was taken into custody at a Dallas check-in appointment, a case that sharpens the contradiction between public praise for military service and the enforcement power used against service members’ families. Wilmer Trujillo, 45, said the detention of Arelys Barahona-Martinez, 40, has left his family facing deportation to Honduras.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Barahona-Martinez on Wednesday, June 11, 2026, during an appointment at an agency office in Dallas, Texas. Trujillo said he served roughly 20 years in uniform and enlisted in the military in the late 1990s, right after high school. The retired staff sergeant has become the public face of a fight over whether a veteran’s record carries any practical weight when a spouse is pulled into immigration enforcement.

Trujillo told CBS News on Friday, June 13, 2026, that his “heart broke” when he was informed his wife would be detained and deported. That reaction places the case within a growing set of disputes involving mixed-status military families, where long service to the United States has not prevented immigration detention of foreign-born spouses. In this case, Trujillo is not only pleading for mercy but also confronting an enforcement system that can move quickly at routine check-ins and leave families with little room to respond.

The detention also underscores the narrow and case-by-case nature of federal relief. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says the Department of Homeland Security may accept and consider parole requests for certain current and former military service members and qualifying family members who are outside the United States. Even so, the existence of that authority has not prevented recent detentions involving military spouses from becoming flashpoints, with other outlets describing Barahona-Martinez’s case as the latest in a series of similar ICE actions.

For Trujillo, the issue is immediate and personal. For immigration officials, it is a test of how discretion is exercised when the people affected are tied to the armed forces. The outcome in Dallas will signal whether the government’s stated deference to military families has any real force when enforcement begins.