Liset Fernandez spent most of the summer worried about her dad, Luis, but a few weeks ago she got some good news. After Luis was held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody for weeks, an immigration judge in Texas granted him release on a $5,000 bond.
Luis, who came to the US from Ecuador in 1994, had been held in detention at a facility in Livingston, Texas, thousands of miles away from his home in Queens. Liset, 17, had taken on extra shifts working a retail job to support her mom and nine-year-old brother. Luis’s co-workers at the Square Diner, a railcar-style greasy spoon in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood for more than 100 years, had raised more than $20,000 to support him and his family.
