By Tom Hicks | September 15, 2026
Editorial Note
Let’s clear up one thing before the usual crowd starts screaming about open borders. The military generally allows lawful permanent residents to enlist. The people being detained in these cases are spouses and parents whose service-member relatives were told that putting on the uniform could help protect their families while they pursued legal status.
That detail doesn’t make the story less outrageous. It makes the bullshit easier to see.
One Government, Two Stories
The recruiting pitch sounds honorable enough. Serve the United States, and programs created for military families may help your parents, spouse or children remain together while their immigration cases are resolved.
Then another arm of the same government walks through the door.
An Associated Press investigation found that immigration authorities have detained at least 52 parents and spouses of active-duty service members since Donald Trump returned to office. At least six were deported, one left the country under pressure and at least eight remained in federal custody when the cases were reviewed. The government doesn’t track these cases, which is awfully convenient when the numbers make you look like an asshole. Associated Press
Some of these relatives were taken during routine immigration appointments. They weren’t hiding in basements or running through a Walmart parking lot with ICE agents behind them. They walked into government offices because they were trying to use the legal process the government told them was available.
That’s where the trap closed.
The Recruiting Office Is Still Selling It
One of the protections involved is military parole-in-place. It can allow certain undocumented parents, spouses, and children of active-duty service members, reservists, veterans, and enlistees to remain in the United States while seeking legal status. Approval is discretionary and never guaranteed, but the program has existed in some form since the George W. Bush administration and was later formally established under Barack Obama. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
The Marine Corps stopped promoting enlistment as a way to protect immigrant relatives in June 2025 after the AP started asking questions. Army and National Guard recruiters continued using the possibility in recruitment messages. One official Army recruiter wrote in July that some people enlist partly to help protect parents who had sacrificed everything for them. Associated Press
For some recruits, that isn’t a minor benefit buried under dental coverage and paid vacation. It can be part of the reason they sign the papers.
The government doesn’t have to promise that every immigration case will end happily. It does have to stop dangling protection with one hand while the other one waits outside the appointment room with handcuffs.
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The Person in Uniform Pays the Price
The damage doesn’t stop with the detained relative. It follows the service member onto the base, into training and toward deployment.
Army Staff Sgt. Alexis Jaramillo had to take administrative leave to care for his 5-year-old stepson after ICE detained his wife during an immigration appointment. Another active-duty soldier halted an approaching deployment after her husband was detained, leaving nobody available to care for their child. An Air Force technical sergeant said the deportation of her father could leave her and her active-duty husband without anyone to care for their two young children if both were deployed. Associated Press
That isn’t some fuzzy morale problem to be discussed at a Pentagon roundtable between lunch and the next PowerPoint presentation. It’s a readiness problem created by the United States government.
I served in the Air Force. The military asks service members to follow orders, leave home, and trust that the people behind them won’t be deliberately placed in danger by another federal agency. You can’t tell someone to concentrate on the mission while they’re wondering whether their wife will still be in the country when they come home.
The administration loves talking about strength. There’s nothing strong about forcing a sergeant to choose between his duty and his child because ICE hauled away the other parent.
That’s government-sponsored sabotage with a flag pinned to its lapel.
Even the First Trump Administration Knew Better
Military families received special consideration across Republican and Democratic administrations because leaders understood the practical stakes. Dan Gividen, who served as an ICE deputy chief counsel during Trump’s first term, told the AP that immediate relatives of service members generally weren’t placed in removal proceedings unless violent crimes were involved. His reaction to the current approach was refreshingly simple: “That’s insane.” Associated Press
The second Trump administration changed the calculation. An April 2025 policy declared that military service alone doesn’t exempt a noncitizen from immigration enforcement. In July 2026, ICE announced that military service by a noncitizen or an immediate relative would be considered as a factor, but “considered” is one of those government words that can mean everything right up until it means jack shit. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
There are cases involving previous removal orders, illegal reentry, and criminal convictions. Those facts matter and should be judged individually. They don’t explain why people without known criminal records were detained during immigration appointments or why the government continues advertising a family benefit it has made slower, weaker and more dangerous to pursue.
Military parole-in-place applications now take an average of roughly 12 months, more than twice as long as before Trump returned to office. That delay creates a larger window in which relatives seeking protection can be detained. A benefit that makes you easier to arrest when you try to use it is one hell of a benefit. Associated Press
Patriotism, Terms and Conditions Apply
The administration’s defense is technically simple: serving in the military doesn’t automatically legalize every member of your family.
Fine. Nobody serious said it did.
The real question is whether America keeps faith with the people it recruits. If military service is used to persuade young Americans from immigrant families to enlist, the government can’t shrug afterward and pretend the advertised protections were some overenthusiastic recruiter talking out of his ass.
A country has every right to enforce its immigration laws. It also has a responsibility to administer them with judgment, consistency, and at least a passing awareness that the recruiting office, immigration office, and detention center all belong to the same damn government.
Right now, the recruiter says your service may help your family. ICE says your service may be considered. The detention center says visiting hours are posted by the door.
That isn’t coherent immigration policy.
It’s a bait-and-switch in camouflage.
From Off Script: The Bullshit Detector
The claim:
Donald Trump built almost 2,000 miles of border wall.
Bullshit.
Why:
Across both Trump administrations, approximately 674 miles of border barriers had been constructed by September 9, including replacement fencing and secondary barriers. Only about 124 miles were new primary wall where no barrier previously existed. Two thousand miles sounds terrific from a convention stage. Unfortunately for Trump, the border comes with a tape measure. FactCheck.org
The claim:
Republicans inherited record-high inflation when Trump returned to office.
Bullshit.
Why:
Inflation reached 9.1 percent in June 2022, then fell to 3 percent before Trump began his second term. By August 2026, it had risen to 3.4 percent. Mike Johnson grabbed the worst number from the middle of Biden’s presidency and dragged it forward nearly three years because the actual number didn’t scare anybody enough. FactCheck.org
The claim:
Trump can give every adult citizen a $5,000 “dividend” if Republicans win Congress.
Bullshit.
Why:
A president can propose the checks. Congress would have to authorize them. The estimated cost is roughly $1.2 trillion before interest, and current tariff revenue would take more than six years to cover it. Trump remembered to tell voters about the $5,000 and forgot to mention that the check currently exists in the same place as Mexico’s payment for the wall. Reuters
Ferret Out the Part They Hoped You’d Miss
The Bullshit Detector: A Field Guide for Catching the Part They Hoped You’d Miss is available for $4.95 at the Tom Hicks Media Store, and free to paid subscribers.
Off Script follows the claims, reads the fine print, and looks for the piece of the story somebody quietly left outside. Because there’s already plenty of bullshit in the world. The point is learning how to catch it.
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One Question Before You Go
Should active-duty military service protect a service member’s immediate family from deportation while that family is pursuing legal status?
#Immigration #ICE #MilitaryFamilies #Veterans #MilitaryReadiness #TrumpAdministration #IndependentJournalism #OffScript