ICE Finally Releases Soldier’s Wife After Raiding Military Base

Annie Ramos, the 22-year-old wife of Army soldier Matthew Blank, was released from ICE custody on Tuesday. Ramos had been detained for five days after being arrested on the Fort Polk, Louisiana, military base where her husband is stationed.

“I am deeply grateful to my husband, Matthew, who never stopped fighting for me, and to our families and community who surrounded us with love, prayers, and support. Because of them, I am home,” Ramos said in a statement. “All I have ever wanted is to live with dignity in the country I have called home since I was a baby. I want to finish my degree, continue my education, and serve my community—just as my husband serves our country with honor.”

Just a few weeks after the couple were married, Ramos was arrested by ICE agents. The two were checking in at Fort Polk to begin the process that would allow them to live together at the base and earn military benefits. Ramos was then handcuffed, led away from Blank and her new parents-in-law, and taken to a building that Blank said “looked like an interrogation room.”

She had no criminal record.

Ramos was born in Honduras and is undocumented. She was issued a deportation order when she was 22 months old. But regardless of such orders, U.S. law allows undocumented immigrants who marry U.S. citizens to become eligible for permanent residency. After getting permanent residency, they can apply for citizenship.

The couple had even hired an immigration lawyer to assist them as they navigated the complicated citizenship process, before running into Donald Trump’s lawless goons.

“I knew she didn’t have status,” Blank said after Ramos was detained. “We were doing everything the right way.”

When they’re not milling around airports doing nothing, some ICE agents have been deployed to military bases around the U.S., mostly targeting relatives of military recruits when they show up on visiting days. Ramos’s case was the first reported instance of a military spouse being detained.

Thankfully, the couple is now reunited. The Trump administration has presumably realized it is a terrible look to be splitting up military families at a time when the U.S. is literally at war. Sadly, thousands of other families continue to be forced apart under Trump’s immigration policies.