A Wisconsin man is standing by his vote for Donald Trump, even after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained his Peruvian wife as the couple returned home from their long-overdue honeymoon.
Bradley Bartell, a lifelong Wisconsin resident and Trump supporter, watched in disbelief as federal agents took his wife, Camila Muñoz, into custody at a U.S. airport following their trip to Puerto Rico.
But despite this incident, Bartell is holding the line: “I don’t regret the vote,” he told Newsweek.
According to the news outlet:
In 2019, Muñoz arrived in Wisconsin Dells on a work-study visa, which expired around the time COVID-19 began and international travel came to a standstill. While working in farming and hospitality, she met Bartell, who gave her his number on a scrap of paper—though she initially threw it away.
A few days later, they reconnected on Facebook and soon developed a serious relationship. The couple eventually married, but a honeymoon wasn’t possible because of the pandemic.
In February, Muñoz and Bartell traveled to Puerto Rico to finally take their honeymoon, and upon returning to the U.S. mainland, immigration agents stopped Muñoz and asked whether she was an American citizen. When she explained that she wasn’t but was in the process of obtaining a green card, they detained her. She is being held in an ICE facility in Louisiana.
His wife’s detainment is heartbreaking—but Bartell understands the bigger picture. He knows that the fight to restore law and order in this country won’t come without its bumps.
What he’s facing is not a result of Trump’s policies but the tangled mess of red tape and decades of broken immigration bureaucracy created by both Democrats and the Republican establishment.
“It’s all been a nightmare really, taking things as they come and moving forward,” he said. “We have an attorney. The system for getting people through seems to be very inefficient, so it is taking longer than it should.”
Although, Bartell called out the flaws in ICE’s operations.
“ICE never really has any information, it seems. The system needs to be revamped for better processes and communication between departments.”
Yet instead of pointing fingers at Trump or playing the victim card, Bartell is showing the kind of resolve we should be celebrating.
“He didn’t create the system, but he does have an opportunity to improve it. Hopefully, all this attention will bring to light how broken it is.”
According to Newsweek, Bartell admitted that he might have to move to Peru if his wife is deported. Yet he still doesn’t regret supporting the one man in Washington who’s actually trying to fix the mess.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help cover legal expenses.
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