A woman chose to marry her husband inside an ICE detention center after months of his detention and the internet can’t get enough of it. Juan Serrano has been held at the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Facility for several months now. Juan was taken from his house after a regular check-in.
According to Christina Serrano, Juan’s now-legal wife, this moment “upended their life.” However, Christina didn’t wait for Juan to get out of the detention center. She instead chose to marry him in hopes of helping his immigration case.
While the ICE detention center wedding certainly wasn’t how Christina envisioned it, she spoke about the experience in a conversation with 23ABC News Bakersfield. “What it counts is like our heart, we were here together at that time,” Christina said. “It was something that we didn’t want to have it this way, but we still ended up doing it because we want to have our love together all the time.”
🇺🇸 A California woman just got married inside an ICE detention center in Bakersfield. No guests, no photos, a pastor and two people determined to make it legal.
Her husband has been detained for seven months after a routine immigration check-in. The marriage is both a love story… https://t.co/040Y22dNhK pic.twitter.com/gs0NpqBnRM
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 19, 2026
Juan Serrano was taken into custody by ICE officials in September 2025. Christina revealed that Juan had been living in the U.S. for five years and had applied for asylum while working as a welder. She stated that he made regular check-ins with immigration, but missed a call from immigration officials.
The wife revealed that the ICE agents called Juan regarding his check-in after he missed his phone call and “that’s when they got him detained.” The two had gotten engaged just a month before Juan Serrano was taken into custody by ICE officials. The two feared they would have to wait a long time to marry. However, Christina later realized that she could get married inside the detention center, though it required substantial paperwork.
An inspection report by ICE found dozens of safety and security violations — but no allegations of mistreatment — at the country’s largest migrant detention center, Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. https://t.co/m4M4r6e3Yb pic.twitter.com/VRV55onxSG
— ABC News (@ABC) April 3, 2026
The process took two months to complete and once all the paperwork was filed, a wedding date of April 15 was set. Dawn Wilder, a pastor at Emmanuel Lutheran Church Dawn Wilder, who officiated the ceremony, said, “As soon as they asked, I said yes. The biggest challenge was ICE sets the date and time. We had no control over that.” Now that the two are married, Christina Serano is using the marriage as a means to file a formal immigration petition.
“He would just want to be able to get released anytime soon and be with his family,” Christina revealed. “We would love to have it in Las Vegas, and enjoy the time there.” According to the NY Post, the couple’s son even wrote a letter with a small drawing to Donald Trump. The letter read, “Please send me dad Juan back home I miss him so much. Mr. President Trump please free my daddy,” with the drawing depicting Juan Serrano talking to his little son in the ICE detention center.
