The family and attorney of Lisandro Pantaleon Pacheco confirmed Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him on his way to work early April 29.
It’s not clear exactly where, but the 22-year-old Park City High School graduate was scheduled to start a new job at a local bagel shop that day.
He was expecting to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in parks, recreation and tourism from the University of Utah Friday.
According to his attorney Adam Crayk, Pacheco had bought a ring and also planned to propose Friday to his girlfriend, Britney Xiques.
“He loves [being] outside, growing up in Park City, somewhere so scenic and beautiful with so much nature and beauty in it,” Xiques said during a press conference streamed by FOX 13 News. “He loved to bike… he made his own bike.”
Crayk said [at a press conference streamed by FOX 13] Pacheco didn’t have any criminal record except for a traffic violation.
He was a first-generation college student, having gone through the Bright Futures program in the Park City School District, according to an online fundraiser page.
“To say that we're going after ‘the worst of the worst’ is — it's kind of offensive,” Crayk said. “Because it is simply not true.”
As of Thursday, Pacheco was being held at a county jail in Evanston, Wyoming, which his attorney said is usually a transitional facility.
ICE has yet to respond to KPCW’s request for comment on its operations in the Park City area Wednesday. The Park City Police Department said they were “targeted” operations, meaning agents were looking for specific people.
Crayk struggled to make sense of what he felt was more likely a “chance encounter” between Pacheco and ICE.
“Was it a profiling situation?” Crayk said. “Well, according to the Supreme Court, now you can do that because it gives you probable cause based on things that have never been allowed before: color of your skin.”
Crayk said he is aware of immigration authorities taking seven or eight people into custody April 29.
Xiques said Pacheco’s loved ones are shocked, nervous and confused. She has his phone’s location in her phone and checked it when he wasn’t responding Wednesday.
“I noticed he was on his way to Salt Lake, and I had an exam, so I figured maybe he was coming to surprise me. But the more I tracked him, the more I realized that he was going off of his regular route,” she said. “He got off [the highway] at Redwood [Road], and he arrived at the immigration court in West Valley.”
Crayk plans to challenge Pacheco’s detention in court and said more and more lawyers are successfully freeing their clients with what used to be a “Hail Mary” court petition.
“It's simply the fact that the law is not being followed at all,” Crayk said. “At all.”
The online fundraiser collecting money for Pacheco’s legal fees had raised about $20,000 as of Thursday.
Pacheco was brought from Mexico to the United States unlawfully when he was one year old and had applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Crayk said the federal government “paused” his application because of the volume it had received.
