The El Salvadoran wife of an active-duty U.S. soldier detained by ICE could be deported to Mexico.
Sergeant First Class Jose Serrano, an active-duty U.S. Army sergeant who served in the Army for 27 years, including several years in Afghanistan, said ICE is out of control after his wife, Daisy Rivera Ortega, who is El Salvadorian by birth, was detained by ICE on April 14 in Texas. When Ortega was arrested he was assigned to the immigration office in El Paso.Ortega came to the US in 2016 and was granted legal protection in 2019, CBS News reported. Because of his legal protections, Ortega cannot be deported to El Salvador, but authorities told Serrano, 51, that his wife could be deported to Mexico. Serrano said, “I don’t really understand why, because he followed immigration rules to a T from day one.” He said his wife had an active work permit at the time of her arrest.Serrano said in his interview with CBS, “I love the Army. The Army helped me for almost 28 years. This is not the Army, sir. This is ICE.” “ICE is out of control right now and is taking away our rights as soldiers.”Serrano was born in Puerto Rico, and the couple married in 2022. He also submitted a Parole in Place application on his wife’s behalf last year, which is a special program designed to provide deportation protection to military spouses or parents who are in the U.S. without legal status, but the case remained pending. The wife had a military ID that was labeled wife of an active-duty Army soldier. US service members cannot travel to Mexico. If Ortega is deported to Mexico where she knows no one, Serrano will have to give up either her army career or her wife. He suffered from traumatic brain injury, PTSD and depression and his mental health deteriorated after his wife’s arrest as he was unable to sleep.
DHS says Ortega is a criminal illegal alien
DHS said in its statement to CBS News that Ortega was ordered deported in 2019 after receiving full due process. The department labeled him a “criminal illegal alien” and said he had been convicted of illegal entry into the United States.