ICE Detains Honduran Woman with 2005 Removal Order During Dallas Check-in

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Arelys Barahona-Martinez, 40, on June 10 at a check-in appointment at an ICE office in Dallas. She is now held at the Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga, Oklahoma, according to the agency's online detainee tracker.

@CBSNews reported that Barahona-Martinez entered the United States illegally in 2005 and received a final order of removal from an immigration judge on November 2, 2005. She crossed the border illegally a second time in 2018, government documents show. Her husband, retired Staff Sgt.

U.S. Army beginning in the late 1990s, then 16 years in the Texas National Guard, with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring in 2021. -citizen son, who has neurofibromatosis.

Trujillo said the family has become tight-knit over the past years. " She will remain in ICE custody pending removal, the statement said. Mark Shmueli, Barahona-Martinez's immigration lawyer, said his client has no criminal record.

He added that the 2005 deportation order was issued in absentia because she did not attend a hearing she was unaware of. -born son needed medical care and because gang members in Honduras were trying to recruit the boy. Trujillo said ICE is treating his wife like a hardened criminal.

"My message to ICE is: I'm not asking for favors," he told CBS News. "I am just asking [ICE] to let my wife go. " Shmueli said Barahona-Martinez has a pending request to reopen her immigration court case and plans to file an application for Parole-in-Place, a program that can protect certain military spouses from deportation.

U.S. citizen, provided the removal order is nullified. U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and military veteran, said the arrest affects military readiness and morale.