Army veteran fears wife still faces deportation after ICE release

Sgt. 1st Class Jose Serrano, a 27-year Army veteran with three Afghanistan deployments, says his wife may still be deported even after Immigration and Customs Enforcement released her from custody. Deisy Rivera Ortega, an El Salvador native who lives and works at Fort Bliss in El Paso, was detained April 14 during an immigration appointment tied to her application for Military Parole in Place.

Her case lays bare the narrow protections available to some military families. Military Parole in Place is a discretionary program run through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Homeland Security that can help certain spouses and parents of service members remain in the United States legally. But it is not automatic, and it does not erase a removal order already on the books.

That is the obstacle still hanging over Rivera Ortega. DHS has said she was subject to a final order of removal dated December 12, 2019. After roughly a month in ICE custody, she was released, but under strict supervision: a GPS tracking device, mandatory home visits and regular ICE check-ins. Serrano’s fear is that release from custody is not the same as relief from deportation, and the government still holds the power to move her case forward.

Rivera Ortega entered the United States in 2016 near Rio Grande Valley, Texas, and has a valid work permit through 2030. She had also previously been granted withholding of removal from El Salvador, a separate form of protection that can block deportation to a specific country even when a person remains in immigration proceedings. Her pending Parole in Place request could, if approved, allow her to pursue a green card through her marriage to a U.S. citizen.

The case has also drawn political attention. Sen. Tammy Duckworth personally urged DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release Rivera Ortega, arguing she should never have been put in that position. The episode fits a broader pattern in which ICE detentions of relatives of U.S. service members have become more common in recent months, a jarring contrast to the military-family rhetoric often used to describe support for troops.

For Serrano, the uncertainty is the point. His wife is out of ICE custody, but still under surveillance, still subject to immigration enforcement, and still living with a removal order that leaves her status unresolved. In the bureaucracy of immigration, release can mean only that the next stage has begun.