deported

The wife of an active-duty U.S. soldier was deported Monday to her native Honduras, according to her family and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty U.S. military service member to be deported under President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The Associated Press has found more than 50 cases in which immediate family members of U.S. troops were placed in federal immigration detention after the Trump administration rolled back protections for military families. In some instances, DHS has released military spouses following media attention and advocacy by congressional leaders.

Villafranca-Trejo’s husband, Army Sgt. Hedar Leonel Turcios Juarez, said he has been struggling to manage his military duties since she was detained July 11 outside a Walmart near Fort Bliss, Texas, where he is stationed. Since then, he’s had to care for their 6-year-old daughter without his wife’s help. Instead of training in the mornings, he takes his daughter to first grade, and he said he has already had to postpone a planned assignment at another base.

“I don’t know if I will be able to continue with this,” Turcios Juarez told AP of his Army career. “I have to make a plan to make sure I can still fulfill my military responsibilities — but also take care of my family.”

DHS confirmed Villafranca-Trejo’s deportation, saying she had “received due process.”

Villafranca-Trejo, who has no known criminal record and entered the U.S. in 2016 at age 18, was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2017 after failing to appear at a hearing, according to DHS. Villafranca-Trejo’s husband said she had not received a notice for the hearing she missed and did not realize she had been ordered deported until they went to apply for her green card after marrying in 2022.

Originally from Honduras, Turcios Juarez became a U.S. citizen in 2024 after enlisting two years earlier.

Villafranca-Trejo’s motion to reopen her case was denied last May and an appeal before the Board of Immigration Appeals remained pending, according to her attorney. She had also been waiting for about a year for a decision on her application for military parole-in-place, a program that allows the immediate family of U.S. troops to remain in the country to apply for a green card.

“We were following the rules — we did everything we could on our side to fix this problem,” Turcios Juarez told the AP.

Prior to Trump’s second administration, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement would typically allow immediate family members of U.S. troops to adjust their legal status even if they had been issued a final order of removal, according to Dan Gividen, who served as ICE deputy chief counsel from 2016 to 2019 under Trump.

“If you’ve got an active-duty military member that’s married to someone now, and that’s going to give her the opportunity to get a green card, you wouldn’t detain them, much less execute the removal order,” Gividen said.

JP Caballero, a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat representing El Paso, said Escobar had opened a congressional inquiry into Villafranca-Trejo’s case and visited her at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Texas earlier this month.

“My heart breaks for her, her children and the soldier who must feel so betrayed by the country he is sacrificing for,” Escobar told AP in a statement. “There are far too many families like theirs who are being targeted instead of supported.”

Turcios Juarez said he is unsure how he will care for his daughter without his wife. He still hasn’t figured out how to tell his daughter what has happened. But he says he still wants to keep serving his country.

“I love what I do, I want to keep doing this,” he said of the Army. “I just don’t know how I am going to keep doing this.”

Brook writes for the Associated Press.

Aug. 21 (UPI) — Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo said Guatemala has received 2,284 Mexican nationals deported from the United States this year.

Arévalo confirmed the figure after international media outlets, including CBS News, reported details about the repatriation operations carried out under the U.S. administration.

“What we have done is admit them in transit so that, in coordination with Mexican immigration authorities, they can return and enter Mexican territory less than 24 hours after arriving in the country,” Arévalo said at a news conference Wednesday night.

Arévalo also rejected the suggestion that the procedure could constitute a safe third-country arrangement because the Mexican nationals remain in Guatemala only temporarily before continuing to their home country, local newspaper Prensa Libre reported.

Until recently, Mexican nationals deported from the United States mostly were sent directly back to Mexico, with only a small number routed through other countries.

The Trump administration has used third-country deportations to remove migrants from the United States, signing bilateral agreements with several countries, including Mexico, to receive migrants from other nations.

Arévalo said expenses associated with the Mexican nationals arriving in Guatemala are covered by the Mexican government or, in some cases, by the U.S. government.

The president said the procedure has been carried out more consistently in 2026, with Guatemalan authorities coordinating with the Mexican government to return the deportees to their country.

Arévalo, however, did not explain whether a specific agreement with the United States provides the basis for the arrangement, despite being asked by a journalist what agreement established the procedure and when it was negotiated. He focused his response on the migrants’ transit status and coordination with Mexican authorities.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Ministry objected Thursday to the U.S. practice and said it was coordinating with the countries involved to ensure the safe repatriation of Mexican nationals, DW reported.

“The Mexican government has expressed its opposition to this practice to U.S. authorities and has reiterated that every Mexican citizen has the right to enter the country,” the ministry said.

The ministry did not provide details on the number of cases or the costs involved.

McALLEN, Texas — A Texas mother deported to Mexico despite having legal permission to stay in the U.S. has filed a lawsuit against the federal government after it notified her it would be terminating her permission because of “unauthorized travel” stemming from her deportation.

Jessica Treviño, 34, filed a lawsuit through her attorney this week asking a federal judge to intervene.

Treviño and her husband were arrested in December after federal agents followed them and two of their daughters into a Home Depot parking lot in South Texas. Both were deported and are living in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of Brownsville, Texas. Their three children, all U.S. citizens, are living with family on the U.S. side near the border.

After being brought to the country as a child at the age of 7, Treviño subsequently received legal permission at 20 to remain in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Introduced in 2012, DACA does not confer legal status but has allowed hundreds of thousands of people who had come to the U.S. as children to temporarily remain and obtain work permits.

As a DACA recipient, she must maintain a clean criminal record and is not allowed to travel outside the United States.

Her attorney, David Rozas, filed the lawsuit. He noted her status and work permit were most recently authorized until April 2027.

Notice to terminate DACA cites ‘unauthorized travel’

Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent her a notice of intent to terminate her status for “unauthorized travel outside of the United States on or about March 25, 2026,” the same day she was deported from the country by the Department of Homeland Security.

In a statement, DHS said Treviño’s husband was in the country without permission and driving at the time of the arrest. After a collision between the couple’s vehicle and an unmarked Homeland Security Investigations vehicle, the couple was arrested. DHS claimed she “knowingly accepted voluntary departure and waived appeal. She left the U.S. on March 25, 2026, and will NOT return.”

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Treviño said she did not sign any forms at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility and did not want to be deported.

Lawsuit seeks restitution of status

Rozas filed a petition asking a federal judge in Brownsville to declare the woman’s expulsion was unlawful, order the government to facilitate Treviño’s return to the U.S. and allow her DACA status to remain valid.

“The government had no lawful basis to remove her, and we filed this petition to demand she be brought back home,” her attorney added.

An immigration judge under the Justice Department had issued a voluntary departure order for Treviño in February while she was in ICE custody, but a valid DACA status prevents the Department of Homeland Security from deporting her.

“I would be so blessed to be able to go back home, because that’s what I long for most right now. I’m really desperate. It’s been seven months since I’ve been home,” Treviño said Thursday. Her three children are set to start school next month and Treviño said she would like to be there.

The current Trump administration has deported 86 DACA recipients and arrested 241 others, according to a DHS letter sent in February to Democratic Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois.

Advocates for DACA recipients say Treviño’s deportation is part of a pattern.

“This is what a deliberate, systematic effort to destroy DACA looks like in practice: target recipients one by one, manufacture justifications after the fact and leave their children to grow up without them,” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, a policy organization defending immigration rights.

Gonzalez writes for the Associated Press.

ICE deported a married couple back to Guatemala who had sought safety in the US. Their bodies have been found tied up and shot, with their 14-month-old daughter left alive beside them.

The Indianapolis Colts took a flyer on an impressive athlete from Kenya 13 years ago, but a story that began with an inspirational backdrop has taken an increasingly familiar turn: Daniel Adongo was deported from the United States last month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed.

According to ICE, Adongo, 37, overstayed his visa after his brief NFL career ended in 2015 and he remained in Indiana. The former linebacker and African rugby star was arrested several times over the past nine years for crimes including felony intimidation, battery and disorderly conduct. He also showed signs of mental illness, according to court records.

“This dangerous individual was clearly a threat to the community, which is now safer since he’s been removed,” ICE Chicago Assistant Field Office Director Douglas Thompson said in a statement. “Those who violate immigration law are held equally accountable, including former professional athletes.”

Adongo was released by the Colts after playing in two games in 2013 and three in 2015, mostly on special teams. The team cut ties with him after police were called to a home in Fishers, Ind., to check on a woman who lived with Adongo.

According to a police report, the woman’s friend contacted law enforcement. Adongo was not at the residence at the time, and the woman declined medical assistance. The Hamilton County prosecutor’s office reviewed the case and did not charge Adongo.

However, the 6-foot-5, 260-pound Adongo began exhibiting increasingly erratic behavior. In 2017, an Indiana judge found him mentally incompetent to stand trial in a criminal case in which he was charged with intimidation and criminal mischief and ordered him committed to a state psychiatric hospital for evaluation and observation, according to the Indianapolis Star.

The only crime Adongo has been convicted of is a criminal mischief misdemeanor in 2020 for which he was sentenced to 364 days in jail, according to ICE. Other charges for intimidation, battery and disorderly conduct were dismissed.

Judges twice found Adongo incompetent to stand trial, according to court filings, including one case in which an expert witness testified that Adongo was acutely psychotic and possibly suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy — brain trauma — from playing football and rugby.

Members of Adongo’s family described in court filings a dramatic personality change in him after his playing career ended and expressed concern that he struggled to access mental health treatment.

ICE held Adongo without bond for several months under the Laken Riley Act, a federal law signed Jan. 29, 2025, that requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detain undocumented immigrants without bond when arrested for specific crimes. He was deported one month ago.

Adongo was the first of two Kenyans to play in the NFL. The second was guard Rees Odhiambo, who played in 16 games from 2016 to 2018 for the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals.