ICE Detains Soldier's Wife at Military Base While Couple Sought Green Card

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the wife of a U.S. Army staff sergeant at a Louisiana military base on April 2 while the couple was attempting to register her as a military spouse and begin applying for a green card.

Annie Ramos, 22, was taken into custody at Fort Polk, where her husband, Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank, 23, is stationed. According to Blank's attorney, Jessie Schreier, Ramos was born in Honduras and entered the United States in February 2005 as a toddler. She now faces deportation under a removal order issued in April 2005, when she was 20 months old.

The detention occurred as Blank was completing paperwork to obtain a military ID for his wife and initiate the green card process. Instead of leaving the base as a recognized military spouse, Ramos was taken into ICE custody and is now being held at a detention facility in Basile, Louisiana.

Schreier told ABC News that Ramos had applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections, but her application was placed on hold due to ongoing legal challenges to the program. DACA was created to provide temporary protection from deportation for people brought to the U.S. as children, but the program has faced repeated court battles and administrative changes that have left thousands of applicants in limbo.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed that Ramos "has no legal status to be in this country and was issued a final order of removal by a judge." The agency claims Ramos failed to appear for an immigration hearing as a toddler, resulting in the removal order.

The case highlights the harsh reality of immigration enforcement that treats removal orders issued against infants and toddlers as binding legal judgments decades later. Ramos has lived in the United States for 20 years since that order was issued. She is married to an active-duty service member and was in the process of seeking legal status through that marriage when ICE intervened.

The detention also raises questions about ICE operations on military installations. Fort Polk is a U.S. Army base, and the presence of immigration agents conducting enforcement actions on military property while a soldier attempts to complete official paperwork for his spouse represents an unusual intersection of military and immigration enforcement.

Blank said in a statement released by TheDream.US that he is continuing efforts to secure his wife's release. "I was trying to do everything the right way," he said, describing the process of registering Ramos as a military spouse and beginning the green card application.

Military spouses of U.S. citizens are generally eligible to apply for lawful permanent residence, commonly known as a green card. However, the process can be complicated for individuals who entered the country without inspection or who have outstanding removal orders, even if those orders were issued when they were children.

The case comes amid expanded immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration, which has broadened the categories of immigrants targeted for detention and removal. While previous administrations focused enforcement on individuals with serious criminal convictions, current policy treats nearly all undocumented immigrants as priorities for deportation, including those with long-standing ties to the U.S. and family members who are citizens or service members.

Ramos remains in ICE custody at the Basile detention facility, where Schreier said the removal order could be carried out at any time. Blank and his legal team are working to halt the deportation and secure her release while they pursue legal avenues to challenge the decades-old removal order and complete the green card application process.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about why ICE agents chose to detain Ramos at a military base while she was in the process of seeking legal status through her marriage to an active-duty soldier.