Military Spouse Detained, Husband Deploys Alone

0:00On April 6th, Army Staff Sergeant Matthew Blank's world got flipped upside down when immigration and customs enforcement agents detained his new wife. Annie Ramos, right at his base in Fort Polk, Louisiana. This happened last Thursday, just days after their wedding. Blank, a 23-year-old soldier, with over 5 years of service including deployments to the Middle East in Europe, was prepping for his next assignment. Ramos, a 22-year-old biochemistry student and Sunday school teacher with no criminal record, faced a deportation order from 2000. Five issued when she was an infant because her family missed the court day. The couple had hired a lawyer to start her path to legal residency through marriage, even after her DACA application stalled under the previous Trump administration. On April 2nd, Blank, Ramos, and his parents showed up at the base visitor center with marriage papers, her passport, and his military ID to get her. Spouse benefits activated, but when they admitted she lacked a visa or green card, things escalated

1:02fast-based security called ICE, and agents handcuffed her on the spot, despite. The families please. Blank's mom begged the agents not to take her, and they seemed sorry, saying higher ups left them no choice. This case highlights how the immigration push is hitting military families hard, snagging non-criminals like Ramos, who grew up here in Call America, home. Now Ramos sits in a detention center in Basile, Louisiana, where her family couldn't even get paperwork to her for signing. Blank told reporters she got ripped away, just as they planned her move in after Easter, leaving him to deploy without her, a raw deal for a vet, defending the country.