MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Memphis high school student who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had a meeting with Tennessee State Rep. Gabby Salinas, according to a press release Tuesday morning.A spokesperson said that 18-year-old Yasser Jose Lopez Soza was in the passenger seat of a vehicle, on the way to a season-opening soccer game, when it was pulled over by ICE on Feb. 20.He was immediately taken into custody and is being held at the West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason.School officials stated that Soza was a good student who had a job, in addition to playing on his school’s soccer team. Collierville officer resigns amid domestic assault charge After meeting with Soza, Rep. Salinas released the following statement:“On Sunday, March 8th, I was able to visit with Yasser. This was my first time meeting him and from the short amount of time I spent with him, I could tell that he is a bright student with a shy disposition. I got to talk to him about one of our shared interests, which is soccer. I’ve never seen him play, but I know he plays defense, and from what I’ve been told, he is a star soccer player who has future opportunities to play at the college level. Like most teenagers in their spring semester, his biggest worry is about his grades and his schoolwork. He told me that, like the majority of the people in detention at the facility in Mason, he is a good person and not a criminal. He is simply a teenager who works hard at his studies, has a job, and has had his dreams put on hold. His detention is a direct result of the Memphis Task Force that was set up in late 2025.”“He says he has good days and bad days in there,” said Rep. Salinas.Along with a representative from his school, Salinas said she met with 18-year-old Yasser Jose Lopez Soza at an ICE facility in Mason over the weekend.“He’s working in the kitchen, he’s trying to keep his mind off the heaviness of the moment,” said Salinas. “He told me that he and his friends had been working really hard to prepare for this first match that they were going to have.”WREG asked Salinas what her reaction was when the school reached out to her.“We knew that things like this were happening. This is a direct result of the Memphis Task Force. We had been hearing several stories of, ‘hey, I was just going to my court date, or hey, I was just driving down a street and then all of a sudden I get pulled over,'” she said.Rep. Salinas says Yasser moved to the United States when he was 15 years old, and he has a job and a life here.“You can tell he is a very smart young man by the questions he was asking. He is very much concerned about his schoolwork. It is the spring semester, going into his senior year. He is missing a lot of tests and assignments,” said Salinas. Germantown High School administrator charged with DUI “Going into it, I asked if we would be able to bring him school work, and that request was denied,” said Salinas. “Memphis has real problems, we know, everybody knows, I’m not denying that crime is a real problem but this is where the resources are going, and this is one example of how innocent people are being targeted.”We reached out to ICE and the Memphis Safe Task Force about Soza’s detainment and have not heard back.Salinas says attorneys are involved.Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.