U.S. BORDER PATROL agents arrested Luis Manuel Aviles Roa following a vehicle stop in Key West, Florida, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Sunday. Aviles Roa, originally from Nicaragua, was placed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.
The 48-year-old handyman has lived in the United States for 19 years, according to his wife, Argelia Aviles.
His son, Joshua Aviles, learned of the arrest aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier assigned to the Middle East during the war with Iran.
“I’ve been deployed for over nine months, out at sea in the Middle East aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, fighting for a country that has given me everything.
I just got a call that my dad was taken by ICE,” Joshua wrote in a social media post.
Joshua said his father had a driver’s license, Social Security card and work permit. The family had pursued legal permanent residency for Aviles Roa and was waiting for his green card to be approved.
“We have done everything through immigration to get his green card approved, and we are just waiting. This is heartbreaking for me. I don’t know how I can mentally continue working 12+ hour days knowing that my dad is somewhere, possibly being treated like a criminal,” Joshua wrote.
Joshua’s sister, Katherine Delgado, said he joined the military partly because he believed his service could improve his father’s prospects for citizenship. Joshua wanted his father to “no longer be living in fear of being arrested,” she said.
DHS said Aviles Roa entered the United States illegally and would remain in ICE custody as the government seeks to deport him.
“Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws,” the department said.
The administration has detained at least dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. service members. At least six military family members have been deported and one left the country voluntarily.
The arrest compounds the strain on a sailor serving through one of the Navy’s most demanding recent deployments. The Lincoln remained deployed for more than 250 days, including more than 200 consecutive days without a port call, setting a modern record for continuous time at sea by a U.S. aircraft carrier.
Sailors’ families had already raised concerns about deteriorating living conditions, shortages and the crew’s mental health. Democratic lawmakers sought answers from Pentagon officials and called for an independent review of the deployment.
The Lincoln left the Middle East on Saturday after the USS George Washington arrived in the region to take over its mission.
Aviles Roa had been waiting to embrace his son after nine months apart. Delgado described the reunion now confronting their family:
“And he’s gonna come home without his father.”
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It is hard to know which is worse in the USA; the heartlessness, the arrogance or the stupidity. Taking on station service members’ family members on a mentally taxing deployment on a bubblegum and bailing wire carrier is the most stupid of all moves. Breaking a family who came and served is heartless. To expect their all in spite of horrendous treatment is a species of arrogance. Where is the First Anchor Baby? Sitting in a gilded palace, keystroking his own con. The bill is going to be paid for generations.
It's truly heartbreaking and the cruelty of it is the point. Thank Miller and the rest of the racisct administration and Congressmen and women who are allowing all of this to happen. I will never forgive them!