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Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday released the wife of an active-duty U.S. Army soldier and Afghanistan war veteran after a monthlong detention, her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Jose Serrano, told CBS News.
Serrano’s wife, El Salvador native Deisy Rivera Ortega, was detained by ICE on April 14 during an immigration appointment in El Paso, Texas. Serrano, who has served in the Army for 27 years, including three deployments to Afghanistan, first revealed to CBS News last month that his wife had been arrested by ICE after living in the U.S. for roughly a decade.
She attended that appointment as part of an application for a special immigration program known as Parole in Place, designed to protect military spouses and parents who are in the U.S. illegally or without permanent legal status from deportation.
In an interview Thursday, Serrano said he was elated when he received the news of his wife’s release, saying he had come close to giving up. He said they gave each other a “big hug.”
“I don’t have words to describe how happy I feel,” Serrano told CBS News soon after he picked up his wife from an ICE detention center in El Paso. “When they called me that my wife would be released today, I started shaking, tears on my eyes and heart pounding super fast.”
Rivera Ortega’s arrest was one of several ICE detentions in recent months involving relatives of U.S. service members. While historically rare, those arrests have become more common under the second Trump administration, which has vowed to oversee the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history.
At the time, the Department of Homeland Security said ICE arrested Rivera Ortega because of a deportation order dating back to 2019. DHS also said she was convicted of entering the U.S. illegally, a federal misdemeanor.
Serrano said his wife had been working in the U.S. legally with a government permit stemming from a legal protection she received under the United Nations Convention Against Torture that shields her from being deported to her native El Salvador. If granted, her pending Parole in Place application could also allow Rivera Ortega to obtain a green card or permanent residency based on her marriage to a U.S. citizen.
Serrano said his wife was informed in ICE detention that she was facing deportation to a third country, such as Mexico, because her legal protection only bars officials from returning her to El Salvador. Serrano, who married Rivera Ortega in 2022, said his wife’s detention exacerbated his mental health challenges, noting he has been treated previously for a traumatic brain injury, PTSD and depression.
During an interview with CBS News last week, White House border czar Tom Homan pledged to “look into” Rivera Ortega’s case after being asked about it.
While he argued that those who have received deportation orders have been afforded “due process,” Homan also acknowledged that it was a “difficult” case and noted ICE officers “have discretion” on who to target and who not to target.
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a combat veteran, told CBS News in a statement late Thursday that she personally called Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, asking for Rivera Ortega to be released.
“I’m thankful to Secretary Mullin for heeding my personal call to release Deisy, but she — and so many others — should never have been in this situation to begin with. I will never stop working to protect our Veterans and military families,” Duckworth said. “They fought for this country, we must fight for them.”
Serrano told CBS News he and wife are committed to following the immigration process to “fix” her legal situation.
“My wife and myself will be on time in every appointment. That’s something you learn from basic training,” he added.
