Bradley Bartell and Camila Munoz have been reunited after she spent 49 days in ICE detention.
How did a Maryland resident end up in a El Salvador prison?
U.S. immigration officials admit mistakenly deporting a Maryland man to El Salvador, sparking controversy and criticism from advocates.
Straight Arrow News
- A Peruvian woman married to a U.S. citizen, was detained by ICE for 49 days.
- She was released on a $3,000 bond and is awaiting her immigration court date.
- Their case gained national attention amidst debates about immigration policies.
Bradley Bartell voted for President Donald Trump. A month later, ICE arrested his Peruvian wife.
But, now, after 49 days in detention, Camila Muñoz is free.
Bartell was waiting for her outside in 90-degree heat after an immigration judge released her on bond Friday.
“The jail captain, she opened the door,” Muñoz, 26, later told USA TODAY. “Bradley was standing there sweating. I was sweating and my heart was beating so hard. I kissed him and we hugged and he said, ‘Let’s get out of here.'”
“It was a huge relief to be able to have her out here with me again,” said Bartell, 41, speaking to USA TODAY from their road trip home. “It was just a huge weight off my shoulders.”
The couple’s harrowing encounter with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, first reported by USA TODAY, went viral last month as Americans grappled with the scope of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Bartell and Muñoz, who is from Peru, met in the Dells, Wisconsin, and married last year after a two-year courtship. They took a belated honeymoon to Puerto Rico in February – unaware that her decision to overstay a work-study visa during the pandemic lockdown five years ago could land her in ICE detention.
At the San Juan airport on their way home, federal agents pulled Muñoz aside and asked if she was a U.S. citizen, though Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and a domestic flight. She answered no but said she and her husband had submitted the paperwork for her legal permanent residency.
ICE detained her and later moved her to Louisiana.
For nearly six weeks, Muñoz had no pending court date or bond hearing. She had no criminal background and faced no criminal charges. ICE has wide latitude to detain immigrants who violate the terms of their visa, or who are in an unfinished immigration process.
Bartell, who has full custody of his 11-year-old son from a previous marriage, said he seriously considered moving the family if his wife was deported. “It was just something that crossed my mind if everything went south,” he said.
When she called him, an 877 area-code would flash on the screen and a warning that he was on a recorded line. She ended her voice-recorded name with “de Bartell,” a traditional way to add her marital name in Spanish.
The days turned into weeks. February turned to March, then April.
Bartell made the 15-hour drive to Monroe, Louisiana, in March to visit Muñoz. The immigrant women detained at Richwood Correctional Center are allowed one, two-hour visit per week. The meeting was the couple’s only face-to-face time together during the whole ordeal.
“I understand the government is doing stuff to protect the country,” Muñoz said. “But I was thinking, it’s too much.”
“I started to get scared,” she said. “I met women who had been there seven months, eight months. People who think they are going to be Americans or have the green card – I wasn’t the only one. There were a large number of people who were married.”
On Friday, April 4, at 9 a.m., Muñoz attended her bond hearing with an immigration judge, via video. The government’s attorney told the judge, “This case has been in the news,” Muñoz said.
Bartell had driven through the night from Wisconsin and watched the hearing on video from his car, outside the detention center.
The judge set a $3,000 bond. To get her out the same day, Bartell had to pay it in person. So he drove another four hours round-trip to the nearest ICE office, in Oakdale, Louisiana.
He didn’t want her to spend another night locked up.
“It’s tough hearing about people in for seven months,” Bartell said, of other women who were detained with Muñoz. “What’s the logic? Why not use an ankle monitor? I’m glad I was able to get her out.”
Muñoz, who has no criminal record in the U.S. or her home country, still faces an immigration court process related to her visa overstay, separate from the couple’s application for her green card, which is under review.
She is scheduled to go before an immigration judge in mid-April.
“I understand Trump is doing his job as president, and these are the processes,” she said, “but the cases should move more quickly if people aren’t associated with a gang, or don’t have a criminal record.”
The day after her release, the couple visited a Coca-Cola museum in Monroe, before heading out on the road home to Wisconsin.
She wrote their names and the date on a sticky note and snapped a photo, with a Coca-Cola sign in the background.
She said that now that she is free, she is going to do what she can for those who are still detained, to raise money so they can buy food from the jail commissary, or pay for expensive telephone calls to their families.
With Bartell back to work, Muñoz spent her first day home with her best friend and her friend’s 4-year-old son.
They ordered Wisconsin fast-food: Culver’s burgers, cheese curds – fried cheese balls – and ice cream, one of her favorites.
Lauren Villagran can be reached at [email protected].