A 19-year-old Northwest Georgia student is in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody following an arrest late last week for allegedly driving without a license.The Trion High School senior and soccer team captain, Elder Aguilar-Macario, was pulled over May 1 by the Georgia State Patrol for alleged failure to maintain his lane of travel and arrested for allegedly driving without a valid license. That's according to data from the state law enforcement agency and booking information from the Walker County Sheriff's office.In Georgia, law enforcement officers who encounter a driver without a valid license — a misdemeanor offense — are required to make an arrest in order to collect a fingerprint.Aguilar-Macario's uncle, Jaime Lainez Macario, said his nephew called him during the traffic stop."He was scared. He told me that he shouldn't have been driving," Lainez Macario, who spoke on behalf of his family, said by phone. "I tried to tell him that everything's going to be all right, but he was definitely in thought."(READ MORE: Deportation leaves Georgia mother of disabled American child with little support)At the jail following the arrest, Lainez Macario said his nephew's brother, soccer coach and principal waited at the jail to find out more information about what would happen next. They were informed that ICE had taken an interest in his case and that a 48-hour hold would begin once they paid the $400 bond, he said.The family has been in touch with Aguilar-Macario several times a day since his arrest. Around midday Thursday, Lainez Macario said his nephew arrived at a detention facility in the Atlanta region, but the 19-year-old didn't know the name or whether it was administered by a federal, state or local agency.Aguilar-Macario appears on ICE's inmate database, but the listing does not include his location.ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Contributed photo / Elder Aguilar-Macario, 19, is the captain of the soccer team at Trion High School. He was arrested for an alleged traffic offense and transferred to ICE custody.The Walker County Sheriff's Office has a collaboration agreement with ICE that makes it easier for jail staff to check federal databases for the immigration status of someone in the department's custody.In the first three months of 2026, the Department of Homeland Security, the department that oversees ICE, issued 21 holds for people in the Walker County jail, according to a report from the Sheriff's Office.After-hours calls to the Sheriff's Office were not returned.(SIGN UP: Get Chattanooga area politics news weekly in your inbox at timesfreepress.com/politics)Lainez Macario said the family is asking the community for advice about how they can help Aguilar-Macario. They've started a GoFundMe to raise money to help with legal fees associated with his immigration case."We're not hearing positive things. We want to talk to someone who at least gives us that hope," Aguilar-Macario said. "But from people we're talking to, not much they can do."When he was 6 years old, Aguilar-Macario's mother brought him and his younger brother to the U.S. from Guatemala, Lainez Macario said. Without legal authorization to be in the country, the single-parent household went through many difficulties, Lainez Macario said.If he's deported, Lainez Macario said, Aguilar-Macario doesn't know anyone in Guatemala."He doesn't tell us this, but he's probably thinking, you know, a little bit on the negative side — maybe he's going to go back and he's not going to see everyone that he's made friends with here, everyone that's ever been in his life," Lainez Macario said. "There's no family there that really would be there for him. I mean, there's no one. His family is here, his mom is here."Aguilar-Macario is enrolled in a dual program with Trion High School and Georgia Northwestern Technical College for a welding certificate. He was set to walk at his high school graduation May 22."He had an American dream," Lainez Macario said. "He had that dream that he was going to be someone for him and for his family to be proud of."During the calls, Aguilar-Macario tries to put on a tough face so as not to worry his mother, who is pregnant, his uncle said.The family has been getting calls and messages from friends in the community since Aguilar-Macario was arrested, Lainez Macario said."They know him in a different way than I do," Lainez Macario said. "He's been impacting so many lives here that I didn't know about."On the phone, Lainez Macario said his nephew tries to relay information from other inmates to their own families."Even in his situation, he's helping people where he is, that's just a kind of person he is," Lainez Macario said. "He helps people. It tells you a lot about his character."Contact Report for America corps member Jules Feeney at jfeeney@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431. Jules Feeney jfeeney@timesfreepress.com Jules Feeney is a Report for America corps member covering the local impacts of the Trump administration for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Before moving to Tennessee, Feeney worked as a freelance researcher and editorial intern at the Guardian US.