Veteran Fights to Keep Wife from Deportation

Wilmer Trujillo, a retired staff sergeant with nearly 20 years of service in the U.S. Army and the Texas National Guard, faces a deeply personal struggle. Despite his military achievements abroad in Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Korea, his current battle is at home. Trujillo is pleading with the government he once served to prevent the deportation of his wife.

Speaking from his home in Princeton, Texas, Trujillo expressed his anguish over the situation. ‘It breaks me because the country I worked my entire life for is ripping my family apart, and taking away my wife,’ he shared. The sense of betrayal and helplessness in his voice is palpable.

Arelys Barahona-Martinez, Trujillo’s wife of six years and a native of Honduras, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a routine appointment. Although she has no criminal record, Barahona-Martinez faces deportation due to a prior deportation order issued in 2005 after she entered the U.S. illegally. ICE officials say she entered again in 2018.

Barahona-Martinez is among several relatives of U.S. service members targeted as part of a broader deportation drive. During a video call from an ICE detention center in Texas, Barahona-Martinez tearfully described her confinement as a ‘living hell.’

‘The only thing I’m asking them is for them to let me be with my family and to complete the process with them,’ she pleaded.

There is a potential route to permanent residency for Barahona-Martinez, thanks to her marriage to a U.S. citizen. However, this requires the reopening of her deportation case and possible relief through the parole-in-place program, designed to safeguard military families from deportation. Yet, whether ICE will allow her to pursue this process without detention is still uncertain.

Barahona-Martinez and Trujillo first met in 2019 after she returned to the U.S. in 2018. Her decision to reenter was driven by a need to protect her U.S.-born son, Idben, from gang recruitment in Honduras and to address his health issues related to a genetic disorder. Trujillo has since grown close to Idben and the rest of Barahona-Martinez’s family.

Idben, now 20, lives with Trujillo and misses his mother’s presence. ‘The house feels empty without her,’ he admitted.

‘She came to this country just to save my life,’ he explained, emphasizing the critical nature of her return due to his medical condition.