A US Marine Corps veteran in Louisiana, US is struggling after his wife was detained by immigration officers while applying for a green card.
Adrian Clouatre, a Marine Corps veteran, said his two children keep asking for their mother. His nearly two-year-old son asks where she is at bedtime, and his three-month-old daughter, who was breastfeeding, now has to be fed with a bottle.
“Mama will be back soon,” Clouatre tells his son. He said he worries about how the baby will bond with her mother while she is away.
Clouatre’s wife, Paola, is among thousands of people in custody and at risk of deportation as US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers aim to make 3,000 arrests a day under the Trump administration.
US Marine Corps veteran Adrian Clouatre holds a sign from his wedding at his home in Baton Rouge, La (AP)
Paola Clouatre, 25, is from Mexico. She came to the US with her mother over 10 years ago seeking asylum. She met Adrian, 26, in California in 2022 during the final months of his military service. The two married in 2024 and soon applied for a green card so Paola could live and work legally.
Adrian Clouatre said to AP, “I’m not very political, but I believe she deserves to live here legally.” He added, “I’m all for getting the criminals out of the country, but people who are working hard and married to Americans that’s always been a way to get a green card.”
Things were going well with the green card process until officials found out there was a deportation order against Paola from 2018. That order was given after her mother missed an immigration hearing. Adrian said Paola had no idea about the order because she and her mother had not been in touch for years.
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During a green card appointment on 27 May, officials brought up the deportation order. Adrian said they were asked to wait in the lobby for more paperwork, but he believes it was a way to hold them until ICE officers arrived. Officers then arrested Paola and she handed her husband her wedding ring.
Clouatre’s wife, Paola, is among thousands of people in custody and at risk of deportation (AP)
Adrian now drives eight hours round trip to visit his wife at a detention centre in Monroe.
The couple’s lawyer, Carey Holliday, told AP, “It’s just a hell of a way to treat a veteran. You take their wives and send them back to Mexico?”
The Clouatres are asking a judge to reopen Paola’s case. They are waiting for an answer.
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A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement to AP that Paola is in the country illegally and that the government will not ignore the law. US Citizenship and Immigration Services wrote on X that ignoring a deportation order is “a bad idea” and that the government will not tolerate defiance.
Adrian said the post was unfair because his wife came as a child seeking asylum and did not know about the order. Experts told AP that military families once had more protection from deportation, but this has changed.
