State of Texas: Judge orders Texas teen released from immigration detention

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:05]An Austin high school senior reunited with his family on Wednesday after weeks in federal immigration custody. Earlier this month, we told you the story of Luis Fernando Cabrera. The 18-year-old landed in an immigration detention after a DPS trooper stopped him over an expired registration. After nearly three weeks in custody, a federal judge ordered the US government to release him. Investigative reporter Kelly Wy has followed the story for weeks now. She's joining us now. So, walk us through these new developments.

[00:00:33]>> Well, Cabera had been detained at the K County Immigration Processing Center southeast of San Antonio. And originally, ICE officials told us he would remain there until he completed his immigration proceedings. But Wednesday, US District Court Judge Jason Pullium granted his legal team's habius corpus petition and found that Cabrera's detention was unlawful because the teen was not a flight risk or a danger to the community. He did not have a criminal record and he'd previously complied with the conditions of his release. In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security said Cabrera will receive full due process. A DHS spokesperson went on to say they encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the US the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return. And part of this order from the judge states that Cabrera could not be deported or removed under this detention. He also stated that he expedited this case because of Cabrera's approaching high school graduation.

[00:01:41]That's coming up in just over a week.

[00:01:43]All >> right, Kelly will help us with some of the backgrounds in this case. How long has Cabrera been in the country and is he here legally?

[00:01:50]>> So Cabrera came in as a family unit to the country. That's according to an ICE spokesperson in 2019. So at the time he was 11 years old and we know that he's got several family members here. He's living right now with his sister and his little baby nephew who's just two years old. And what we understand from court records is that since 2020, Cabrera has had an open case with the government.

[00:02:15]And his attorney tells us that he's been complying with his asylum proceedings.

[00:02:20]They came here seeking asylum. And their attorney says, and this was kind of part of the judge's order, that he had been complying with that process so far. My colleague Esme Zamora and I spoke to his sister on the phone Thursday morning after she sent this video of their reunion to us. The big thing his family and legal team were pushing for again was to see him be released in time for graduation.

[00:02:43]>> What do you think this case tells us about how immigration enforcement is playing out in Texas right now, particularly for people who came to this country as children?

[00:02:52]>> I think there's a lot to learn from this case in particular. One thing that jumped out to us about this was that the trooper that arrested Luis Fernando is a was a trooper that was trained under what's called a 287g agreement. And so there's lots of different forms of these agreements. They're very common in Texas right now. We're the state that has the most 287g agreements. And this is essentially an agreement between a law enforcement agency and ICE that we will in for instance the task force model of this agreement that allows for trained officers to be able to identify and arrest people suspected of being in the country unlawfully. There's also a jail task force model that would allow for um jails to hold people thought to be in the country unlawfully for ICE to come and then detain them themselves. So that was really significant to us that this arrest was a product in some by some measure of these agreements. DPS has had a 287g agreement with the federal government since October 2025. So that was significant. But yes, also I'm an education reporter. That's what I investigate in that office all the time.

[00:04:06]And so it was interesting to see a kid, someone that age, 18, someone so close to graduation, someone coming home from a late night shift at a fast food restaurant to be detained. And I think we go back to what we originally heard from the president about this mission that they're on to crack down on, you know, undocumented in the country. And what we heard then was that they were going after the worst of the worst.

[00:04:33]>> Yeah. Violent offenders.

[00:04:35]>> Exactly. And so it's interesting in this case, the rallying that we heard, right?

[00:04:40]Letters from his English teacher, letters from his principles talking to his soccer coach, his his uh the folks at his church saying, "This is a kid with impeccable character." And uh so I thought that was interesting as well.

[00:04:53]>> All right, graduation day on June 2nd.

[00:04:55]Investigative reporter Kelly Wy, thank you so much.

[00:04:57]>> Thank you for having me.

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