ALBAWABA - A U.S. Navy sailor on deployment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln said his father has been detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Saturday.
Joshua Aviles has been out at sea for 9 months, deployed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, the reputation of which has been quickly deteriorating as sailors aboard it have suffered shortages and inhumane conditions.
Some of the sailors on board even attempted to jump ship to end their deployment sooner as the USS Abraham Lincoln broke the record for the longest consecutive deployment at 207 days – the longest uninterrupted naval deployment in U.S. history.
“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,” Aviles wrote in a post on Facebook.
“I just got a call that my dad was taken by ICE. If you know my dad, you know he is a hardworking, humble man who is always willing to help anyone if he can. My dad has his driver’s license, Social Security card, and work permit,” he added.
Despite this, Aviles’s father was detained by the immigration authorities, with the U.S. servicemember now worried that his father is being treated like a criminal in an ICE detention center,
“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,” Aviles wrote in the Facebook post.
“My dad’s only “crime” was coming to this country to give my siblings and me a better life,” he added.
ICE responded in a statement employing the Nuremberg defense, saying that they were just 'doing their job' and 'following orders',
“We are simply enforcing the laws passed by Congress. This Administration does not pick and choose which laws to enforce,” a DHS spokesperson told NBC, adding that “work authorization or a pending application do NOT confer legal status in the United States.”
