By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) – The wife of a U.S. Army sergeant was deported to Honduras on Monday, marking the latest example of the impact of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on relatives of members of the U.S. military.
Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo “was removed from the United States” on Monday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email. Army Sergeant Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez told ABC News his wife, the mother of a 6-year-old, was deported to Honduras.
Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty U.S. military service member to be deported under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, according to an Associated Press tally.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is part of DHS and has been the face of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and deportation drive, arrested her on July 11 after conducting what the DHS called a “targeted immigration enforcement operation.” The DHS said she received due process.
Turcios Juarez previously said ICE officers detained his wife outside a Walmart in July as their daughter watched. He said his wife left Honduras in 2016 due to violent crime in the country. The DHS alleged that she illegally entered the United States.
Turcios Juarez joined the military and became a U.S. citizen in 2024 after a nine-month deployment to the Middle East, according to ABC News. He said he began pursuing citizenship for his wife, hoping his service would help expedite her naturalization process.
Over the weekend, the immigrant father of a U.S. sailor on board the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which was deployed in the Middle East during the Iran war, was taken into federal immigration custody and remains in detention.
Trump has pursued an immigration crackdown that includes revocations of visas and green cards and an aggressive deportation drive. He says the crackdown aims to improve domestic security.
Rights groups say the crackdown has violated free speech and due process rights and created an unsafe environment, particularly for ethnic minorities, who have raised concerns about racial profiling.
While Trump campaigned in 2024 on a platform of stopping illegal immigration, his administration has also made legal immigration more difficult – for example, by imposing new and expensive fees for applicants of certain work visas.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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