Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, the Nicaraguan father of a U.S. Navy sailor serving aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, has been taken into federal immigration custody while his son remains deployed at sea. Aviles Roa was detained by U.S. Border Patrol in Key West, Florida, and transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
His son, Joshua Aviles, said his father had a driver’s license, Social Security card and authorization to work in the United States and that the family had been waiting for a decision on his green-card application. The Department of Homeland Security, however, says Aviles Roa entered the country illegally and will remain in ICE custody while removal proceedings move forward. DHS said having a family member serving in the U.S. military does not provide an exemption from immigration law.
The detention comes while Joshua Aviles is serving aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that has spent much of its current deployment operating far from home. The Navy said this month that the carrier had been deployed for 266 days, including 200 days in a combat zone, and that its sailors and Marines had faced unusually demanding conditions before the ship’s planned return home.
For military families, deployments already mean long stretches of separation and limited control over events at home. The Navy maintains family-support programs specifically to help sailors and their relatives navigate problems while ships are away. In this case, Aviles has publicly expressed distress over his father’s detention while he remains thousands of miles away aboard the carrier.
The case puts two federal priorities into an unusual collision: enforcing U.S. immigration law while an immediate family member of the person being detained is actively serving the country overseas. DHS maintains that military service by a relative does not change an individual’s immigration obligations. For Aviles, however, the enforcement action is unfolding while he remains aboard a U.S. warship, unable to return home and deal with his father’s case in person.
