Photo by: Holi Zaday Cabrera
Austin Senior Detained by ICE Weeks Before Graduation
What should have been a quiet drive home from a late-night shift turned into a life-altering arrest.
Eighteen-year-old Luis Fernando Cabrera was driving home from his closing shift at Popeyes around 2 a.m. on May 1 when a Texas State Trooper pulled him over along IH-35 in Austin for expired registration. The stop quickly escalated: DPS officials said the trooper was unable to verify Cabrera Chavarria’s identity through its database, determined the teen was not lawfully in the U.S., and then contacted ICE.
Luis Fernando Cabrera Chavarria, 18, is a senior and the goalie on the varsity soccer team at Northeast Early College High School, and was set to graduate in June. He came to the U.S. at age 11 and was in the country without legal status, awaiting a ruling on his asylum case. His family says it fled Mexico after a legislator threatened to kill them for reporting the politician’s younger brother for sexually abusing the Cabreras’ teenage daughter.
Luis described his arrest in a phone interview from inside the detention center: “I told them I was a student and that I was coming home from work. They told me that didn’t matter. They chained my feet, my waist, and my hands.”
Cabrera’s lawyers have filed a writ of habeas corpus appeal, arguing he does not need to be detained while his case plays out.
On Monday, Rep. Greg Casar joined friends and supporters outside Northeast Early College High School and called for Cabrera’s immediate release, standing next to his cap and gown. “He is sitting in an ICE detention center for no reason other than a routine traffic stop,” Casar said. “Donald Trump said he was going after the worst of the worst. Fernando is the best of us.”
ICE has defended the detention. A statement from the agency said “Being in detention is a choice,” and encouraged immigrants without documentation to self-deport through the Trump administration’s CBP Home App program.
The case has rattled Cabrera’s school community. “You realize it could happen to anyone because it happened to him,” said classmate Jose Emilio Araujo. “Everyone knows what’s happening in the country, but it hits you when it’s the people you know.”
His detention comes as immigration enforcement has sharply escalated under the Trump administration. Federal data analyzed by The Marshall Project found ICE detained more than 6,200 children during Trump’s second term, a dramatic increase from previous years.
No hearing date has yet been set.
Sources:
- KXAN Investigations: kxan.com
- Austin Current: austincurrent.org
- KUT Radio / NPR Austin: kut.org
- CBS Austin: cbsaustin.com
- Spectrum News Texas: spectrumlocalnews.com
- Austin American-Statesman (via Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s office): doggett.house.gov
- KVUE ABC Austin: kvue.com
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