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An 18-year-old Memphis student is being held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center after he was detained on the way to a school soccer game just over two weeks ago.
Yasser Jose Lopez Soza was riding in a car with teammates to the soccer game on Feb. 20 when the driver was pulled over for a traffic violation, Soza family attorney Jay Paul Fearnley said this week.
An officer asked each person for a form of ID and Soza was unable to provide one, prompting the officer to call immigration officials. Soza is charged with being present in the U.S. without a valid travel document or proof of admission, Fearnley said.
The Memphis Business Academy junior has spent more than two weeks in federal custody. Soza is listed as being in ICE custody in the West Tennessee Detention Center database. Memphis-Shelby County School officials declined to comment because the arrest took place off campus, and ICE did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
Fearnley said Soza’s case was caused by a “perfect storm” of local immigration crackdowns and changes in federal policy.
“At the end of the day, the government is doing things that they’ve never done before, and they’re doing things that don’t make sense, and they’re detaining 18-year-old high schoolers, who all they wanted to do was get an education and better themselves,” he told Chalkbeat on Tuesday.
Soza immigrated to the U.S. from Nicaragua with his mom when he was 15 and requested asylum under a President Biden-era program that was meant to streamline the process of entering the country. On his first day in office last January, President Trump revoked the program.
Soza already had an asylum hearing scheduled for March 2027. For decades, having a scheduled hearing meant detention wasn’t mandatory unless the person was a terrorist or flight risk, Fearnley said.
But in the fall, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that asylum seekers are not considered admitted to the country. That means Fearnley has to appeal to the federal court for a bond to be posted. Fearnley filed a habeas corpus petition on March 4 to challenge Soza’s detention.
If he isn’t able to get Soza out of detention, Fearnley said the asylum hearing could be expedited to this May.
“Yasser is not a felon, but he’s being treated like a felon,” Fearnley said. “So long as you’re in compliance with everything, you should be left alone and be given your due process to prepare for your next court date outside of custody.”
Immigration enforcement has been snaring students around the country for the past year, including in Detroit and New York City. Trump campaigned on running the “largest deportation operation in American history” and has increased immigration raids and arrests nationwide since taking office.
Fearnley said he hasn’t been able to speak directly with Soza, who is being held at the West Tennessee Detention Center in Mason. He said the center is “making it extremely difficult for attorneys to get contact with their clients.” A call he had scheduled with Soza last Sunday was canceled without explanation. And he’s been turned away from visiting clients there in person.
Memphis students, one lawmaker rally around Soza’s case
Soza’s case has sparked protests from his fellow students and interest from Tennessee Rep. Gabby Salinas, a Memphis Democrat who visited Soza in detention on Sunday for one hour.
Salinas told Chalkbeat that an administrator from Memphis Business Academy came with her. She said they were his first visitors in over two weeks.
Salinas also said she wasn’t allowed to bring any schoolwork into the facility for Soza, who is worried about falling behind before his senior year.
“He said he has some days that are good and some days that are bad, and that he is working in the kitchen because it helps the days go by faster,” she said.
A week after the arrest, hundreds of Memphis Business Academy students staged a walkout. Social media videos show students chanting “Free Yasser” and carrying signs reading “ICE out” and “Leave our neighbors alone” in the school parking lot.
Memphis teachers and students have been sounding the alarm about drops in attendance and increased fear since the Memphis Safe Task Force launched in October. The group of federal and state immigration and law enforcement officials has made over 6,700 arrests, including nearly 200 children, in the past six months.
In October, the Memphis school board voted to expand bus services in an effort to reduce absences caused by ICE crackdowns. But district officials said the next month that doing so would cost at least $10 million, and they haven’t brought the proposal up since then.
Rep. Salinas is sponsoring a bill this year that would ban ICE from entering schools and churches without giving notice and prevent the enforcement agency from using those places as staging areas. She said MSCS should publicly support the bill and advocate against others, such as one pushing for more data collection on student immigration status.
“This is a glimpse of what our future looks like if those bills become law,” Salinas said. “We are already seeing innocent people get caught up in this and students being targeted without us having to require or be forced to ask for documentation.”
Fearnley can’t predict if Soza will be granted a trial to challenge his detention. Soza could opt for voluntary removal, which would mean the 18-year-old would go back to Nicaragua and wait for a potential university admission to provide a student visa.
“I wish it was a little bit more of a home run case,” Fearnley said. “It’s a case where the circumstances are despicable, and they’re disgusting. But unfortunately, I’m seeing cases like this all the time right now.”
Bri Hatch covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Bri at bhatch@chalkbeat.org.
