In one of Alyssa Nevarez’s first phone calls to her husband on Thanksgiving Day, he listed items for sale so she could afford the mortgage on her New Mexico home.
He was scared, but his first concern was taking care of his wife and four children.
That day, Juan Nevarez and his 16-year-old son, Jonathan, were just hours away from being reunited with Alyssa in Nashville. She flew ahead with her three children to spend more time with her brother, country singer Frank Ray.
Their families were waiting in Nashville, where they would be Ray’s guests at the Grand Ole Opry’s 100th anniversary celebration.
The two were waiting in line at a TSA checkpoint at El Paso International Airport when Nevarez showed an agent his employment authorization card. The card was renewed in March and is valid until 2030.
Juan Nevarez poses with his wife, Alyssa, and their four children, Jonathan, Emily, Anthony (back row, left to right) and Jacob. On November 27, 2025, Juan Nevarez was detained at the El Paso International Airport after presenting a valid employment authorization card to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
“He was detained by TSA, then Border Patrol, and ultimately turned over to ICE, even though his immigration documents were up to date,” Wray’s representative said in a press release.
Ray said Nevarez’s son was only with his father that day and did not fly with his mother because he wanted to spend time with his father. If Jonathan had not been present, the family may not have known immediately that he was being detained.
“When they realized they had a 16-year-old American citizen in custody for this incident, obviously, they had to try to rectify the situation,” Wray said. “Sometimes they just grab you, detain you, keep you in custody, and people want to know what happened. So I strongly believe, and I speculate, that might have been the case if Jonathan hadn’t been there.”
Jonathan was released and placed in the care of his grandfather.
stuck in trouble
Nevarez was born in Mexico but has lived in the United States for two decades. He first befriends Frank and Alyssa’s eldest brother. It was through him that Nevarez met his wife.
“He was handsome from the beginning,” Alyssa Nevarez said when asked what attracted her to him. “He had a big heart and was very charismatic. Juan was a great father. He wanted the best for our kids and wanted to provide everything he didn’t have growing up. He raised our kids to have a strong work ethic like he did.”
The couple married and had four children – three sons and a daughter. He had been a foreman since 2016 for Renegade Construction, which provides services in southern New Mexico and western Texas, and worked part-time on granite and tile, his wife said.
Ray said his paperwork is always up to date and he pays taxes like a U.S. citizen. In addition to the employment authorization card, Nevarez also has a pending green card application. But simply holding a valid work permit does not mean Nevarez has legal status.
“His impression was that he was good, and he was good for the next five years,” Ray said. “He’s flown before on the same work visa. So as far as he’s concerned, it’s not going to be any different. Unfortunately, it’s different.”
Nevarez canceled his deportation petition in 2015 and can remain in the U.S. if he can prove he has lived in the U.S. for 10 years or more, has not been convicted of a crime, and that deportation would cause hardship to your citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse or children. But immigration resources were scarce during the Obama administration, which ordered judges to approve low-priority applications and focus on people with criminal convictions.
“It makes no sense to spend our law enforcement resources on these low-priority cases when they can have a greater impact on others, including individuals convicted of serious crimes,” a White House press release in August 2011 said.
Nevarez’s case was classified as one of low priority and was administratively closed on May 12, 2015, according to online records from the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review. According to data kept by the Office of Immigration Review, he was one of nearly 132,000 people whose cases were administratively closed between 2011 and 2017.
As of press time, ICE had not responded to questions about why Nevarez was detained.
mixed emotions
The hours and days after Nevarez was taken into custody remained fraught.
“He calls every day and we can do video calls. I can visit him on Saturdays and Sundays because he’s only an hour away from me,” Alyssa Nevarez said. “Some days are better than others. I have to remind him to stay strong and don’t give up. God has a plan and it’s just a matter of keeping our faith in God. I can’t imagine those families further away going through the same situation.”
Nevarez is currently being held by ICE at the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico, according to the agency’s online detainee database.
“You hear stories like this everywhere, just to seize Latinos or people of Hispanic descent based on any technicality, and that’s the fear that exists in Hispanic culture,” Ray said. “You’re being racially profiled, for lack of a better term, and some of the tactics that ICE and these agents are using are, if not illegal, then borderline illegal and shady.”
For Ray, dealing with the situation brings mixed feelings. He has been a police officer for 10 years.
“As a person of Mexican descent, it’s always been a fine line, but honestly, it doesn’t change my support for law enforcement,” Ray said. “It makes it more complicated. I can support law enforcement but also think this situation is wrong. I do believe that because I generally think that’s the game they’re playing. They’re playing with people’s lives just to get some political currency to use in whatever election is coming up.”
This article originally appeared in Nashville, Tenn.: ICE detains Frank Ray’s brother-in-law on way to Nashville
