Army Staff Sergeant Matthew Blank has been deployed to the Middle East and Europe. He has served this country for more than five years. He is currently assigned to a brigade at Fort Polk, Louisiana that begins training for deployment at the end of this month. And right now, his wife of days is sitting in a detention facility in Basile, Louisiana, because ICE agents entered his military base and took her away in handcuffs while he watched.

Annie Ramos is 22 years old. She has no criminal record. She is a devout Christian who teaches Sunday school. She was weeks away from finishing a bachelor's degree in biochemistry. She was brought to the United States from Honduras when she was a toddler and has spent her entire life here. A deportation order was issued against her in 2005, when she was 22 months old, after her family missed a court hearing. She was not yet two years old.

The couple knew Annie did not have legal status. They hired a lawyer before they were married. They had a green card application ready to file. They arrived at Fort Polk with their marriage license, their identification, and their paperwork, doing everything the right way. On Saturday, Sergeant Blank and his mother drove to the detention center with the completed green card application. It only needed Annie's signature. Guards barred them from bringing anything inside.

This is not a story about someone evading the law. It is a story about a young woman who grew up in America, married an American soldier, and walked onto a military base with documents in hand to begin her life as a military spouse. It is a story about a soldier who is supposed to be focused on preparing for deployment but whose mind cannot be anywhere but a detention center in Louisiana.

A retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and immigration law expert said it plainly: it is fundamentally harmful to national security to be doing this to members of the military, particularly while there is a war going on. A soldier whose spouse has just been detained on his own base, in handcuffs, days after their wedding, is not a soldier whose full attention is on his mission.

Annie Ramos should be released on her own recognizance while her green card application is processed. The spouses of active duty service members who are actively pursuing legal status should not be subject to immigration enforcement actions that destabilize military families and compromise the readiness of deploying soldiers. And a deportation order issued against a child who was not yet two years old should not be the instrument that separates a decorated soldier from his wife.

Sign this petition to demand ICE immediately release Annie Ramos, call on the Department of Defense to establish clear protections for military spouses actively pursuing legal status, and urge Congress to prohibit immigration enforcement actions that directly undermine the readiness of active duty service members.