US Army Reserve Black Hawk pilot Chris Busby, 28, and Stephanie Kenny-Velasquez, 25, went to an Austin courthouse to get their marriage license on Dec. 3.
About 48 hours later, Velasquez entered a Houston Immigration and Customs Enforcement office for a routine check-in and never left, Busby said. The uncertainty left the newlyweds wondering if his time serving the country was worth it, he said.
“Stephanie is beautiful, she’s smart, she’s amazing,” he said. “If it means sacrificing myself or my career to free her, I’ll do it.”
Busby, who enlisted in the Army Reserve in 2015, has spent the past six weeks looking for ways to free his wife from detention. Despite his years of service and their recent marriage, Velasquez was denied bond on Jan. 9, according to her attorney.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment on the Velasquez case.
Velasquez came to the United States in 2021 hoping to start a new life away from the violence and political instability of her native Venezuela. She has no criminal record and presented herself to immigration officials in Miami when she arrived in the country.
Meanwhile, the 25-year-old Velasquez started living in Austin. She took a job at a local car wash and took classes to get her real estate license.
The couple met in March and Busby, 28, immediately knew she was the one.
“I’ve never met anyone like her,” he said. “She came here and she just wanted to be the best.”
Their families had no idea the couple planned to marry, and that’s what Busby said he wanted. Busby said he was saving money from his glass installation business to pay for a big wedding down the line.
Velasquez had an asylum case pending at the time of her detention.
Her brother, Oscar, described his younger sister as ambitious and driven. She hoped to start her own company one day and diligently saved money from working at the car wash and helping Busby in his window-making business. She was studying for her real estate exam on the car ride to her immigration check-in, her husband said, adding that the test was scheduled for the following week.
“She worked so hard for everything she had,” her brother said. “She was so happy.”
But on the day his sister was scheduled to check in with immigration officials, the family remained concerned that Velasquez might fall foul of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown despite her recent marriage and pending asylum case, he said.
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have fled political repression and economic crisis in recent years, arriving in the United States seeking asylum or other legal protection such as temporary protected status, or TPS.
Trump has moved to revoke TPS for many Venezuelans, which has been in effect since 2023, and from other countries as part of his agenda to restrict immigration. This has been allowed to go ahead while legal challenges to the action go through the courts.
Stephanie Kenny-Velasquez. (Chris Busby)
(Chris Busby)
“We left to have a better future, more opportunities. Now if we go abroad, we can be stopped by ICE,” said Oscar.
Like other Venezuelans who emigrated, Oscar said that returning to Venezuela is currently unthinkable after the ouster of Nicolás Maduro. The country is too dangerous and unstable for them to return, he said.
Velasquez was transferred to the Montgomery Processing Center in Conroe, nearly three hours away from Austin. Since entering detention her hair has thinned, Busby said. She sleeps well in a bunk bed surrounded by 80 women, who share seven tablets to contact loved ones and lawyers, Busby said. They are allowed one visit a week and are given barely edible food, he added.
According to her husband, the stress took a toll on Velasquez.
“The girl is 25. She shouldn’t look like she’s pushing 40,” Busby said.
The couple is now hoping for a Hail Mary in the form of the military’s Parole in Place program, which is designed to provide legal protection for non-citizen spouses.
But the administration slowly scaled back the program, and a 2024 court decision ended a Biden-era expansion called Keeping Families Together, which added stephiel children to the list of eligible relatives.
A message on the initiative’s website said that the Department of Homeland Security will no longer accept applications or adjudicate those that were pending. The agency did not immediately respond to a request to clarify whether the Parole in Place program still applies to spouses.
“I’m trying my best but there’s so little I can do,” said Busby. “I just want her out of there.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com