A disabled Vietnam veteran in Encanto says he is now without the wife who has cared for him for 25 years after immigration officials detained her during what was supposed to be a routine check-in appointment. Elton Stovell, Sr., who is 100% disabled, relies on his wife Blanca for daily care, and his family says she was taken into custody in San Diego on Nov. 5 and remains held at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility.
A Routine Appointment Turns Into Detention
According to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News, Blanca, who is Rosali Stovell's 65-year-old mother, was detained by immigration officials during what the family describes as a routine check-in appointment. The outlet reports that immigration officials detained her because of a prior deportation decades earlier, after she crossed and was deported about 26 years ago before returning to the United States, where she started a family, had her daughter Rosali, married Elton Stovell, Sr., and built a home. Immigration officials reportedly did not review Blanca's paperwork packet, which the family says she began compiling as part of her citizenship process three years ago, in 2023.
Rosali Stovell told the station that her family's world fell apart in less than a week, and she said she misses her mother. She also described seeing her mother in a detention uniform as distressing. The family had hoped Blanca would receive protection under military parole in place, a policy the station's report notes has been curtailed during the Trump administration, given that Elton Stovell, Sr. served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era from 1966 to 1969.
Family Pushes Petition as State Leaders Offer to Look Into Case
The Stovell family has formed a petition to highlight their story, and it has already been signed by hundreds of people, the station reports. State leaders are reportedly offering to look into the case as the family waits for answers about Blanca's future.
Part of a Wider Pattern of San Diego Detentions
The Stovells' situation echoes other recent cases across San Diego County. NBC 7 San Diego reported that ICE arrested Chanidaphon Sopimpa, who is from Thailand and married to retired Marine Staff Sergeant Samuel Shasteen, during her final green-card interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Nov. 18, after which she was taken to the Otay Mesa Detention Center. An immigration judge later ordered her released on bond, according to that report, which also quoted immigration attorney William Menard saying an Australian client married to a Navy veteran was arrested in the same manner on the same day.
Just days before Blanca's detention, an 8-year-old Haitian boy was taken into federal custody after showing up for a scheduled immigration appointment in San Diego on Nov. 4, according to KPBS. The boy had been living with his uncle in City Heights after his father was deported in March 2025, and San Diego Unified and other local officials wrote to federal officials demanding he be returned to his uncle's custody.
Courts Have Repeatedly Pushed Back on Detentions
San Diego's federal courts have seen a surge in challenges to these kinds of arrests. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that about 1,400 immigration-related habeas petitions were filed in the U.S. Southern District of California from January 2025 through this past February, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, part of more than 24,000 filed nationwide since President Trump took office, per Habeas Dockets. The same report noted that on Feb. 11, a San Diego federal judge ordered Herman Rovelo-Gallegos released after finding that ICE had failed to provide adequate notice and an opportunity to respond to his detention.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Union-Tribune that the administration is applying the law as written. Separately, USCIS material states that DHS will accept and consider, on a case-by-case basis, certain parole requests from qualifying current or former military members and family members who are outside the United States and wish to enter the country, though it does not establish how that policy might apply to any specific family's circumstances.
