Instead, after they presented Ramos’s Honduran passport, her birth certificate, their marriage license, and Blank’s military identification, base personnel called a supervisor. Then, someone from the base’s criminal investigation division was contacted, who said he would call Homeland Security and ICE. That officer told the couple that Ramos would be detained.
“Our plan was to drive over, bring her to the office to get her military ID and activate her military spouse benefits,” Blank told The New York Times. “She was going to move in after the Easter weekend. Instead, she got ripped away from me.”
When undocumented immigrants marry U.S. citizens, they are supposed to become eligible for permanent residency, and then they can apply for citizenship three years later, even if they were issued a prior deportation order, as Ramos was when she was 22 months old. Ramos and Blank had hired an immigration lawyer before they were married to take care of the situation.
