A 22-year-old newlywed who was detained by immigration agents at Fort Polk in Louisiana has been released while removal proceedings continue, authorities and advocates said. Annie Ramos, a college student and the wife of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Blank, was freed under an order of supervision and required to wear a GPS monitor, the Department of Homeland Security said. TheDream.US, a nonprofit that offers scholarships to undocumented immigrants, also confirmed her release.
Ramos was taken into custody days after she and Blank were married in March. Blank, 23, said he had brought his wife to the base last Thursday so she could begin the process to receive military benefits and pursue a green card. The couple had planned to move into on-post housing after the Easter weekend. “I never imagined that trying to do the right thing would lead to her being taken away from me,” Blank told The Associated Press.
In a statement shared by TheDream.US, Ramos thanked her husband, family and community for their support and said she wanted to “live with dignity” in the country she has called home since childhood, finish her degree, continue her education and serve her community as her husband serves the country.
DHS said Ramos was born in Honduras and entered the United States in 2005 when she was younger than 2. DHS said her family failed to appear for an immigration hearing that year and a judge issued a final order of removal. Ramos applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2020, but her husband said that application has remained in limbo amid legal battles over the program.
Immigration and military family advocates criticized Ramos’ detention as demoralizing and warned that arrests or deportations of service members’ spouses could harm recruitment and unit morale. Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert, said that before recent policy changes the case might have been handled administratively through options such as parole in place or deferred action, and called the detention counterproductive for soldiers’ readiness.
Last April, DHS rescinded a 2022 policy that had treated military service by an immediate family member as a “significant mitigating factor” in enforcement decisions. New guidance states that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws,” and officials have said the department will enforce existing orders of removal.
More than 60 members of Congress wrote to DHS and the Department of Defense last September warning that arrests of military personnel and veterans’ family members betray promises to service members and could discourage families from cooperating with the military. Lydiah Owiti-Otienoh, who leads the Foreign-Born Military Spouse Network, said increased enforcement has upended military families and sends a message that their sacrifices are not valued.
Blank’s mother, Jen Rickling, described Ramos as “everything she hoped for,” noting Ramos is a Sunday school teacher and biochemistry major who loves her son. Rickling told The Associated Press she believes the country can do better for Annie and other military families.
Ramos’ detention and release were first reported by The New York Times. DHS reiterated that the administration is enforcing immigration laws and will not “ignore the rule of law.” Separately, internal DHS data obtained by CBS News showed that in January the number of detainees in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody topped 70,000 for the first time in the agency’s history.