A Nicaraguan immigrant was released from federal custody on Tuesday, three days after being detained by Border Patrol agents in Florida, according to his family. Luis Manuel Aviles Roa, who has lived in the United States for nearly 20 years, was arrested while his son, Josh Aviles, was serving a nine-month deployment in the Middle East as a sailor aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
The arrest occurred on Saturday when Border Patrol agents stopped Aviles Roa’s vehicle in Key West, Florida. According to his son, Aviles Roa was awaiting the approval of his green card, a document for lawful permanent residence, at the time he was taken into custody. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials confirmed the arrest but stated they could not verify when Aviles Roa originally entered the country from Nicaragua.
On Monday, an immigration judge dismissed the case against Aviles Roa shortly after he was processed into a Miami immigration detention center. Following the dismissal, his family announced his release the next day. The DHS stated that military service by a relative does not provide immunity from immigration enforcement or guarantee lawful status, noting that family members of service members are not exempt from national laws.
The scale of immigration enforcement involving military families includes at least seven reported removals of active-duty service members' relatives, including the recent deportation of an Army sergeant's wife to Honduras. These actions follow a broader enforcement policy that, according to DHS statements, treats military relatives the same as other individuals regarding parole and lawful status. A service member, like Josh Aviles, would notice the direct impact through the mental strain of managing family legal crises while working 12-hour shifts during a 250-day sea deployment.
The precedent set by this dismissal may influence how immigration judges view similar cases involving the parents of active-duty sailors and soldiers, though the legal reasoning for the dismissal was not detailed in the source. This case occurred amid reports of difficult conditions and food shortages on the USS Abraham Lincoln. As of Tuesday, the family is awaiting the return of Josh Aviles from his deployment, while the broader policy regarding the deportation of military relatives continues under the current administration's enforcement guidelines.