Soldier's Wife Deported to Honduras Despite Pending Green Card Case

The wife of an active-duty US soldier was deported Monday to her native Honduras, according to her family and the Department of Homeland Security.

Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty US soldier deported under the immigration crackdown during President Trump's second term. The Associated Press has found more than 50 cases in which immediate family members of US troops were placed in federal immigration detention after the administration rolled back protections for military families.

Her husband, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, said he has struggled to manage his military duties since she was detained on July 11 outside a Walmart near Fort Bliss, Texas, where he is stationed. He now takes their 6-year-old daughter to first grade instead of training and has postponed an assignment at another base.

"I don't know if I will be able to continue with this," Turcios Juarez said of his army career. "I have to make a plan to make sure I can still fulfill my military responsibilities — but also take care of my family."

DHS confirmed the deportation, saying Villafranca-Trejo "received due process." She has no known criminal record and entered the US in 2016 at age 18. An immigration judge issued a final removal order in 2017 after she failed to appear at a hearing. Her husband said she never received notice of that hearing and didn't learn of the order until they applied for her green card after marrying in 2022.

Turcios Juarez, also originally from Honduras, became a US citizen in 2024 after enlisting two years earlier. Villafranca-Trejo's motion to reopen her case was denied last May, with an appeal still pending before the Board of Immigration Appeals. She had also waited about a year for a decision on military parole-in-place, a program letting immediate family of US troops remain in the country to apply for a green card.

Dan Gividen, a former ICE deputy chief counsel under Trump's first term, said such removals were previously avoided for military families. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat, opened a congressional inquiry and visited Villafranca-Trejo in detention. "My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for," Escobar said.

Turcios Juarez said he hasn't figured out how to tell his daughter what happened, but plans to keep serving. "I love what I do, I want to keep doing this," he said. "I just don't know how I am going to keep doing this."