Federal immigration agents boarded a cruise ship docked in Miami and detained a Coast Guard veteran earlier this week in what the veteran and his wife say was a case of mistaken identity.
Jose “Joey” Martinez and his wife, Tammy Verhas, were “dead asleep” in their room when federal agents dressed in all black burst into their room at around 6:30 a.m., the veteran recalled. It was about two hours before the Carnival Cruise Line guests were scheduled to disembark from the ship and go through customs in Miami, Florida.
“We were woken to a loud banging on the door and then suddenly three men entered our room with flashlights, screaming,” Martinez said. “They said ‘Jose Martinez,’ and they ordered me out of bed. I didn’t know who they were. I couldn’t see anything because the lights are shining in my eyes.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents ordered Martinez against a wall and handcuffed him, Martinez said, adding that he “did exactly as instructed because I didn’t want anything to escalate.” He told them he was an American citizen. Agents “paraded” him through the boat “in front of other guests” off the ship and placed him into a holding cell, he said.
Martinez said the incident was “definitely a case of mistaken identity” and that agents said his name matched another Jose Martinez who had warrants out for drug trafficking or other criminal offenses. Martinez said he was “dumbfounded” by the incident since his personal information — his Social Security Number, passport, Real ID, facial recognition and TSA PreCheck — was provided to the cruise line.
Martinez said he does not have a criminal record.
As soon as agents entered their room, Verhas told Task & Purpose that she grabbed her phone and began recording before a female agent leapt onto the bed and took it from her. Verhas said she had about 20 seconds of video recorded, but Martinez said he was ordered to delete it.
“They approached me with her phone and said ‘Can I unlock her phone? We need to find out if she filmed us,’ […] which I wasn’t comfortable with […] but they said that ‘she cannot have her phone back if you do not delete this video,’” he recounted. “So I did it. I complied with that.”
As it all unfolded, Verhas said she remembered thinking “What I’ve been seeing on social media all year happening to thousands of Americans is now happening to us.”
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Martinez served in the Coast Guard from 1995 to 2001 as an avionics technician, inspecting and repairing electronics, communications, radar and navigation equipment for service helicopters. He said, regardless of his veteran status, no one should be treated the way he was.
Carnival Cruise officials said in a statement to Task & Purpose that they “are aware that U.S. Customs and Border Protection took a guest into custody as a person of interest.” Other reports have referenced Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Officials with Customs and Border Protection did not respond to Task & Purpose’s inquiry in time for publication.
The couple reunited 90 minutes later, but they both described the events as “violating,” “dehumanizing,” and “traumatizing.”
Martinez and Verhas said it didn’t need to escalate the way it did, and if Martinez had actually been flagged, it could have been handled when they disembarked.
“Everybody gets off the boat. They go through immigration and they have to show their passport,” Martinez said. “I have been stopped through immigration coming back into the country from traveling because of my name, because it’s just a common name. No big deal.”
The couple had been on the nine-day cruise traveling to the southern Caribbean with a group of 16 people celebrating Martinez and another friend’s birthdays. After agents took her husband away, Verhas packed up her things with a friend and went down to the cruise line’s guest services. She remembered screaming through the hallways to alert the other guests about what happened.
“I don’t know who they’re accountable to. I don’t know who they are. They’re just all dressed in black. But Carnival just gave them access to our locked door while we slept,” Verhas said.
In their statement, Carnival Cruise officials said that “this was a law enforcement matter and Carnival was not involved with this investigation or action.”
‘It hits home’
Like Martinez, thousands of other American veterans have not escaped expanded federal immigration raids, detentions and deportations under President Donald Trump’s administration.
“People should be outraged that it’s happening to our service members, American citizens. I’m probably the least aggressive case,” Martinez said.
Recent cases that have gotten mainstream attention include an Iraq War veteran who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the way to work in Southern California. George Retes is now suing the government for what he and his lawyers say was an unconstitutional detention. CBP officials say that ICE agents were executing criminal search warrants at nearby marijuana sites and they arrested Retes for assault.
In another case, a two-tour combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient was deported in November. The Venezuelan-born Army veteran whose family fled Cuba as refugees, served 15 years in prison for criminal charges, including attempted murder, and was detained by immigration authorities when he was released on parole. He had been issued a court-ordered removal.
Estimates of deported veterans are as high as over 10,000, Democratic members of Congress wrote in a June letter to the secretaries for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs.
Beyond experiencing the escalating federal immigration crackdown firsthand, the couple’s recent reality has had several touchpoints with the latest unfolding global politics. Their cruise ship left Curacao, an island 40 miles from the Venezuelan coast, hours before the U.S. bombed the country, which Verhas said “we were a little nervous about.”
Martinez said his niece is a sailor aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford, currently operating in the Caribbean, and was in the region when special operators captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“It hits home with everything that’s going on,” he said.
