The USS Abraham Lincoln sailor who revealed his father was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement said his father had been released.
On Saturday, sailor Joshua Aviles posted on Facebook that his father, an illegal immigrant from Nicaragua, was arrested at a traffic stop in Key West, Florida, in the middle of his record-breaking deployment on the aircraft carrier. After public uproar, Luis Manuel Aviles was released from detention, according to a statement from the family.
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“Luis has been released back to our family,” read the statement on Joshua Aviles’s Facebook page. “We are grateful for all of the support for both Luis and Josh throughout this situation. At this moment, our family is taking time to be together. While we await the return of our proud Navy sailor, we kindly ask for your understanding and respect. We will not be taking interviews at this time.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment.
DHS had originally stuck to its guns, saying previously, “Having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation’s laws.”
The case had drawn public outrage over its intersection of two hot-button issues — the war with Iran and Trump’s immigration policy. Joshua Aviles appealed to his military service in reporting his father’s “heartbreaking” detention.
“We have done everything through immigration to get his green card approved, and we are just waiting,” he said on Saturday. “This is heartbreaking for me. I don’t know how I can mentally continue working 12+ hour day[s].”
Luis Manuel Aviles was detained as part of an immigration enforcement surge over the summer, which has broken records for the number of ICE arrests. July had the highest number of arrests on record, nearly 50,000, a total more than 5 1/2 times the number in December 2024, the last full month before President Donald Trump took office.
His family revealed that he was arrested at a traffic stop, a recent tactic that has heavily contributed to the surge in arrests.
Patricia Quinonez, a journalist covering the Venezuelan immigrant community in Utah for Utahzolanos, told the Associated Press that she’s observed much more rigid enforcement at traffic stops in recent months.
JULY ICE ARREST NUMBERS MARK HIGHEST MONTHLY TOTAL OF TRUMP’S SECOND TERM
“They stop you for whatever reason — for example, you don’t have a driver’s license, your vehicle tags are expired, your windows are more tinted than what is allowed,” she said. “From there, they take advantage of the situation and ask about immigration.”
The Nicaraguan’s arrest in Florida is also of note. Florida and Texas have made up a highly outsize number of arrests, together making up around 20,000.
