What should have been the beginning of a new life together turned into a legal drama. Annie Ramos, a 22-year-old young woman and biochemistry student, was arrested by agents of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) just days after marrying Sergeant Matthew Blank, 23, in Houston. Now she faces deportation to Honduras, a country to which she was moved when she was just a child.
The couple, newly married, was at a military base in Fort Polk, Louisiana, completing the necessary procedures for Ramos to move and access benefits as a military spouse. According to Blank's account to the newspaper The New York Times, his plan was to take her to the office to obtain military identification and activate her temporary legal resident status, but instead, Ramos was separated from him by immigration agents.
“Our plan was to drive there, take her to the office so she could get her military ID and activate her benefits as a military spouse. She was going to move after Easter weekend. Instead, she was snatched from me”, explains Blank.
Had applied for legal residency
Before getting married at the end of March, the couple had hired a lawyer to begin the process of obtaining legal residency, popularly known as "green card", for Ramos. Without a criminal record and with her entire life built in the United States, the young woman was in a situation that would normally allow her to regularize her immigration status, especially after marrying a U.S. citizen. However, a deportation order issued when she was only 22 months old has complicated her situation.
Immigration lawyer Margaret Stock, a retired lieutenant colonel from the Army Reserve and author of the book Immigration Law and the Armed Forces, points out that Ramos would not have been detained before the aggressive arrest and deportation policy pushed by the Trump administration. According to Stock, as indicated to the aforementioned U.S. media outlet, the military traditionally would have allowed Ramos to obtain her identification and would have advised on the submission of immigration documents.
Currently, Ramos is at the Basile detention center, in Louisiana, among other women who will be deported. Her husband has tried to submit the necessary forms to apply for legal residency, but they did not allow him to submit any document. “I grew up here like any American. This is all I know. My husband and my family are here,” declared Ramos from the detention center.