By Sohini Sengupta, By Kanika Saini
The last two weeks in San Diego just shredded the illusion that bureaucracy is slow, thanks to ICE. Military families, the people who have spent their careers saluting the flag and building lives around deployments, are being caught up in ICE enforcement the moment they try to do things “the right way.” The shock is coming from their green card interviews, which are the final checkpoint for spouses seeking legal permanent residency. Instead of leaving with an approval, some are going in handcuffs!
And for veterans, it feels personal. “I kind of feel betrayed, to be honest,” retired Marine Staff Sergeant Samuel Shasteen told NBC San Diego. He gave 20 years to the Corps, including two deployments to Afghanistan. The government knows all of that because it’s literally in the application paperwork. Yet during his wife, Chanidaphon Sopimpa’s, final interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on November 18, 2025, some ICE agents walked in and cuffed her. They took her away as she cried.
Shasteen lost his first wife to cancer in 2022. Later, he met Sopimpa, who is originally from Thailand, and she “filled (…) the void.” Two years later, they married. Yes, she overstayed her visa, but they were following the legal process to fix it. “Any other time in U.S. history, it would have been approved,” said attorney Derek Poulsen, calling the case “straightforward.” Attorneys say there has been an exception when it came to direct relatives of citizens (including military spouses) adjusting immigration status.
But ICE has recently taken a different approach. On the same week Shasteen’s world turned upside down, immigration attorney William Menard watched his client (the Australian wife of a Navy veteran) get arrested at her interview, too. Both these women had no criminal history and were married to U.S. servicemembers. Coincidentally, they were about to receive their green cards.
For days, the Australian woman remained in federal custody. She was granted bond only after an immigration judge stepped in. “You’ve got to wonder what eight days of detention (…) served,” Menard said. He added that in more than a decade of these interviews, he has never seen arrests like this. ICE, however, has consistently stated that overstaying a visa is a violation of federal law, and anyone anywhere may be subject to arrest. And some of them include USCIS offices.
For military families, that’s not a satisfying explanation at all. Shasteen said that after his wife was taken to the Otay Mesa Detention Center, the immigration officer handed him a business card and told him to scan the QR code to figure out what to do next. Shasteen explained, “It (…) frustrated [me] because it was just like ICE propaganda.” His family is now split….again. His son once had trouble warming up to his stepmother, but now avoids home altogether. He admits it reminds him of losing his biological mom.
Meanwhile, Thomas McCarthy, an active duty U.S. Navy sailor, watched ICE take his wife Jessica during a green card interview. “We were doing the right thing,” he told ABC 10. Instead, they walked out with a detention order. Attorneys say they will continue fighting. As Shasteen waits for his wife’s bond hearing next month, he’s started a support group for others whose spouses were detained.
“We come together (…) and fight,” he said.
NEXT UP: Shocking Twist in ICE Raid! Louisiana Detainee Turns Out to Be Linked to Karoline Leavitt
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