He gave Trump his vote. Now His Wife Is Trapped in an ICE Detention Center.  

 Bradley Bartell and Camila Muñoz had the kind of love story you’d expect in a small town.  They met through mutual friends, had their first date at a local steakhouse, and, after two years, got married.  Muoz was already assisting Bartell in raising her 12-year-old son as her own while they were saving for a house and making plans for children. But last month, their world changed.  

 On their way home to Wisconsin from their honeymoon in Puerto Rico, an immigration officer stopped Muñoz at the airport.  

 “Are you an American citizen?”  the agent asked.  

 She answered truthfully: No, she wasn’t.  She was from Peru.  But she and her husband had gone through the legal steps to get her residency in the United States. Bartell had been one of the millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump, believing in his promise to crack down on “criminal illegal immigrants.”  But now, just eight weeks into Trump’s mass deportation push, ICE had detained Muñoz—despite her ongoing legal immigration process.

 And she wasn’t alone.  

 Through attorneys, family members, and documents, *USA TODAY* confirmed that ICE had detained several other women in similar situations:  

 - A woman in her 50s, married to a U.S. citizen, who had lived in the U.S. for over 30 years.  

 - A woman in her 30s, a legal permanent resident with U.S. citizen family, who had first arrived as a teenager.  

 - A European woman in her 30s who is engaged to a citizen of the United States who overstayed her visa many years ago. - A woman who had been engaged to a permanent resident of the United States for nearly a decade. None of them had any felony convictions. All of them were presently involved in legal immigration proceedings. At airport security checkpoints in Puerto Rico and the United States, ICE had swept them all up. Virgin Islands in February.  

 Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to repeated requests for comment.  

 A System That Feels Weaponized  

 Legal experts warn that immigrants in legal limbo should now be extra cautious.  

 “The unfortunate truth is, they have to be worried,” said Nora Ahmed, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana.  “If you’re not a U.S. citizen and you’re going through the immigration process, you have to ask yourself: How can this system be weaponized against me? ”  

 The immigration lawyer for Muoz, David Rozas, stated it bluntly: "Anyone who isn't a legal permanent resident or U.S. citizen is at risk—period." Bartell and Muoz had no idea they were in danger. Knowing that they had already submitted an application for her green card, they wore their wedding rings on the flight home. Yes, Muñoz had overstayed her original visa, but she had worked legally, paid taxes, and followed the proper steps.  

 Before ICE agents took her away, Muñoz removed her wedding ring, fearing it would be confiscated.  She slipped it into her backpack and handed it to Bartell.  

 He shook as she disappeared.  

 What the f— do I do? * he thought.  

  A Love Story Caught in the Crackdown  

 Overstaying a visa isn’t a crime; it’s an administrative violation.  It can be forgiven under immigration law if the immigrant is married to a citizen of the United States. However, the government also has broad authority to detain immigrants, including those whose applications for legal status are pending. Bartell never imagined his wife would be caught up in an immigration sweep.  She had first come to the U.S. legally, on a temporary work visa, to participate in a college work-study program at a Wisconsin water park.  

 Then COVID-19 hit.  Borders closed.  Flights were canceled.  She couldn’t return to Peru, so she stayed, working food service jobs and later meeting Bartell.  

 They fell in love.  They planned a future.  They thought they were doing everything the right way.  

 A System Under Pressure  

 Trump had ordered ICE to ramp up enforcement.  Top officials had been replaced for not increasing detentions quickly enough.  And while arresting convicted criminals required time and manpower, an airport checkpoint provided an easier way to round up multiple immigrants at once—especially those in legal limbo.  

 "ICE is widening the net in a chilling way," said Jesse Franzblau, a senior policy analyst for the National Immigrant Justice Center.  "People who wouldn’t have been targeted before are now being detained."  

 It took Bartell days to locate his wife.  

 For nearly a week, she wasn’t in the ICE detention system.  Then her name finally appeared: She had been sent to a private detention center in Louisiana.  

 On a video call, she appeared in a tan uniform, her black curls askew.  There were nearly 80 other women in her dormitory.  The U.S. government was paying $282 per day to keep her locked up.  

 Bartell was worried about her emotional state.  “It can’t be easy being trapped in a room with 100 other people,” he said.  “They don’t have anything in there.  It’s just so wasteful.”  

 They kept in touch through 20-cents-per-minute phone calls.  She worried about his son, about whether he was eating well, about whether he missed her Peruvian cooking.  

 Their intended savings for a home had been converted into bond money and legal fees.  Regret and Realization  

 Bartell had been thinking a lot about his vote for Trump.  

 “I knew they were cracking down,” he admitted.  “I just didn’t know *how*.”  

 He thought the government would go after people who crossed the border illegally, people who hadn’t been vetted.  But his wife?  “They know who she is.  They know where she came from.”  

 “They need to get the vetting done and not keep people locked up,” he said.  “It doesn’t make any sense.”