Advocates decry targeting of migrants as thousands of US citizens' spouses, parents caught up in crackdown

In March, Maria Flores drove her husband to the courthouse to pay fees related to a traffic ticket in Tennessee. She expected the court visit to be short, but after waiting for hours, she realized something was wrong.

"I went to check in the lobby and I kept asking the sheriff if everything was OK," Flores said. "They kept telling me that they couldn't tell me anything."

Flores said she then saw officers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and immediately realized that her husband was being detained.

Orlin Carrasco, who entered the U.S. in 2013 as a 17-year-old unaccompanied minor from Honduras, was pulled aside after paying his court fees with several others and arrested by federal immigration officers, his wife said.

Carrasco, who doesn't have a removal order or criminal convictions, was sent to a detention center in Louisiana and has been detained since. His attorney told ABC News his detention is unlawful.

"We have a young man from Honduras who was targeted, because we are seeing that across the country, despite no criminal history at all," Alexandra Lopez said. "[He's] a contributor to our society, supporting a family who are U.S. citizens."

"I've done everything the right way," Carrasco said in a video call with Maria. "I've asked ICE for a reason and they don't answer me."

In a statement to ABC News regarding Carrasco's detention, the Department of Homeland Security said "President Trump and Secretary Mullin are now enforcing the law as it was actually written to keep America safe."

Carrasco is one of thousands of immigrants targeted by the Trump administration in its ongoing immigration crackdown.

According to an ABC News analysis of ICE data, the crackdown has affected more than 400,000 individuals with no violent criminal history, including parents and spouses of U.S. citizens.

According to the data, only 3% of individuals detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first 14 months of the second Trump administration had a violent felony conviction.

The data also showed that in the first eight months of 2025, ICE apprehended the parents of approximately 14,450 U.S.-born children. More than 9,700 children saw at least one parent placed into immigration detention -- more than in previous years. Of those detained, parents of more than 7,000 children were eventually deported.

In the first eight months of 2025, ICE also apprehended 4,843 spouses of U.S. citizens. During the first seven months of the term, more than 2,000 of these spouses were deported.

In a statement to ABC News, DHS said it continues to go "after the worst of the worst" and said every individual detained "committed a crime when they came into this country illegally."

DHS also said in a statement the agency "does not separate" families and that "parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates."

The rise in detentions and deportations has prompted immigrant advocates to call for legislation to provide undocumented immigrants in mixed-status families a pathway to remain in the U.S.

Recently, members of American Families United traveled to Washington, D.C., to push for the Dignity Act, a bipartisan bill pending in the House of Representatives to protect some undocumented people from deportation.

Among the advocates in D.C. were Angela Della Valle and her husband Carlos, who was released in April after nine months in federal custody. During his detention, he was transferred to over a dozen facilities, including the Florida detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz."

Angela is a U.S. citizen and the couple has a U.S. citizen son.

"I know I'm not an American, but I feel like an American," Carlos said. "I've lived here for so long ... more than half my life."

"He loves his country, I love my country, and we made a life here," Angela told ABC News. "And so many other families have had to suffer in silence -- and I'm talking about American, white American women like myself, who haven't had the same access, resources, and platform."

The Dignity Act's sponsors, Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar and Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar, told ABC News they hope the bill moves forward in Congress.

"We're doing this for those who have broken the law but have given us their lives," Rep. Salazar said. "They're here. They are cooperating with the American economy."

"This will be the choice for my party," Rep. Escobar said about the bill. "It's unfair for us to say this isn't good enough for those people who live in hiding, who live in fear, who live with uncertainty."