A Marine veteran in Louisiana is speaking out after his wife was taken by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement last month at her green card interview. Adrian Clouatre “gave up the best five years” of his life in the military, he told Fox affiliate WVUE.“At the very least, I would like to be able to keep my wife,” he said.The veteran said he was serving in the Marine Corps when he met Paola, now 25, in Palm Springs, California. That was in 2022, eight years after she had immigrated to the U.S from Mexico with her mother. The couple eventually settled down in Prairieville, about 65 miles away from New Orleans, after Adrian left the Marines.Adrian Clouatre a Marine Corp veteran, said his wife was following the rules to get her green card, but was still detained by ICE.GoFundMe / Adrian ClouatrePaola Clouatre was in the process of obtaining permanent resident status and had an appointment with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on May 27, but learned she had a deportation order only a few days prior, according to The Times-Picayune. Her mother had applied for asylum upon their arrival, but failed to arrive for an asylum hearing in 2018, triggering a deportation order for both mother and daughter. ICE confirmed with HuffPost that Paola Clouatre is a Mexican citizen and that an immigration judge in Los Angeles had ordered her to be removed to Mexico. She was issued her final removal order in 2018. At her green card interview, Paola Clouatre replied honestly when asked if she had a “removal order” pending, saying that she had just learned about it and was working with a lawyer to get it lifted, her husband told WVUE.After the interview, the couple was told to wait for additional paperwork, Adrian Clouatre said. Instead, three ICE agents arrived, he told ABC affiliate WBRZ.The Department of Homeland Security confirmed with the news outlet that Paola Clouatre was arrested and detained.“She has no criminal history,” the couple’s lawyer, former immigration judge Carey Holliday, told HuffPost in an email. “They pass the interview with flying colors but told the examiner that she had a final order of removal. Someone, probably the examiner, called ICE and she was arrested.”She was taken to Richwood Correctional Facility in Monroe, where she is now separated from her husband and their two children, a 1-year-old boy and 9-week-old daughter.“This is no way to treat a veteran and his small children,” Holliday told HuffPost.In a GoFundMe to help offset legal expenses, Adrian Clouatre said “the sudden separation has been overwhelming” for his family. He told WBRZ that his wife is being treated like a prisoner, saying that the lights at the facility are only off from 1 a.m. until 4 a.m., when breakfast is served. The father has been driving three and a half hours each way for their kids to see their mom, and so she can nurse their infant daughter. He told WVUE he’ll do whatever it takes to be with his wife again, even move to Mexico.Holliday, told the outlet the two were “victimized by bad legal advice” and he is now working on getting Paola Clouatre back to Baton Rouge. They are waiting on a pending motion to reopen an emergency stay of removal that would erase her final order of removal. He went on to criticize President Donald Trump’s blanket approach to immigration enforcement, noting that a policy of mass arrests means people get punished when trying to go through the process legally.“Trump, let’s face it, he was elected to do what he’s doing,” Holliday told the outlet. “But, there needs to be exceptions made.”