Wife of U.S. Coast Guard member arrested on base over expired visa

WASHINGTON — The wife of an active-duty Coast Guardsman was arrested this week by federal immigration authorities in the family residential section of the U.S. Naval Air Station at Key West, Fla., after she was flagged in a routine security check, officials said Saturday.

“The spouse is not a member of the Coast Guard and was detained by Homeland Security Investigations pursuant to a lawful removal order,” Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Steve Roth said in a statement confirming Thursday’s on-base arrest. “The Coast Guard works closely with HSI and others to enforce federal laws, including on immigration.”

According to a U.S. official, the woman’s work visa expired around 2017, and she was marked for removal from the United States a few years later. She and the Coast Guardsman were married early this year, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an enforcement incident.

Though the Trump administration has made immigration arrests a top priority for federal law enforcement, it did not immediately appear that the on-base arrest of the military spouse was part of a broader sweep.

The official said that when the woman and her Coast Guard husband were preparing to move into their on-base housing on Wednesday, they went to the visitor control center to get a pass so she could access the Key West installation. During the routine security screening required for base access, the woman’s name was flagged as a problem.

Base personnel contacted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which looked into the matter, said the official. NCIS and Coast Guard security personnel got permission from the base commander to enter the installation and then went to the Coast Guardsman’s home Thursday, the official said. They were joined by personnel from Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

HSI eventually took the spouse into custody, and the official said they believe she is still being detained. Officials did not give the name of her native country.

The Coast Guard referred questions about the woman’s identity, immigration status and charges to ICE, which did not respond to a request for comment Saturday. The Department of Homeland Security also did not respond to a request for comment.

The husband of the arrested woman is a Coast Guardsman assigned to the USCGC Mohawk, a cutter based at Key West. The couple were moving into U.S. government housing at the nearby Naval Air Station.

An online database that tracks ship movements shows the Mohawk has been docked in its home port since mid-March. A March 16 media release says the ship had recently returned following a 70-day deployment to the Eastern Pacific on a mission to intercept shipments of illegal drugs.

In a statement, the Navy said that it “fully cooperated with federal law enforcement authorities on this matter. We take security and access at naval installations seriously.”

Biesecker and Baldor write for the Associated Press. AP writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.