ACLU of Tennessee Statement: Free Yasser Lopez

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — In a country that calls itself a nation of immigrants, a teenage soccer star sits in a jail cell in Mason, Tennessee for pursuing the American Dream. On February 20, 18-year-old Yasser Lopez was on his way to a soccer game. Today, he is in custody at the West Tennessee Detention Facility in Mason because the Memphis Police Department allegedly turned a routine traffic stop into an immigration sweep as part of the Memphis Safe Task Force. As President Trump prepares to visit Memphis on Monday to tout the task force's record, Yasser, a soft-spoken teenage, is waiting in a cell in Mason despite having no criminal charges against him.

Yasser is a junior at Memphis Business Academy. He came to the U.S. at 14 years old, following his mother in pursuit of a better future. The Nicaragua native is pursuing asylum, the legal process our system provides for immigrants fleeing danger. He wants to finish high school, play soccer, and, hopefully, earn a college scholarship someday. Instead, he is sitting in a facility that the ACLU of Tennessee has already identified as opening on a legally flawed foundation.

His detention is the predictable outcome of an ongoing immigration operation in Memphis running under the guise of public safety. Data from The Daily Memphian shows that 87.6% of the Memphis Safe Task Force's immigration-related arrests between October and December 2025 began with traffic stops rather than investigations into violent crime. Statewide, nearly 60% of ICE arrests in Tennessee in 2025 involve individuals with no criminal convictions. In Shelby County, that figure climbs to 77%, according to the Institute for Public Service Reporting. Yasser Lopez fits that pattern precisely: a teenager on his way to a soccer game, now sitting in a cell.

The facility holding him is also built on a broken foundation. Last year, the ACLU of Tennessee questioned the very contract that brought CoreCivic's for-profit detention center to Mason, documenting that the Town of Mason's Board of Mayor and Alderman failed to approve the ICE contract in accordance with its own charter. A majority vote was required, and it was not obtained. What is happening to Yasser inside that facility is inseparable from how that facility came to be — through a process that bypassed transparency, community input, and the town's own rules.

The dubiously named Memphis Safe Task Force has failed to make many Memphians feel safer. Instead, what it has delivered is fear in school hallways, empty desks in classrooms, shuttered businesses, and teenagers detained on the way to soccer games. What is happening to Yasser Lopez is a referendum on whether justice and opportunity in this country are promises kept or promises that will continue to be broken for one Memphis family.

The ACLU of Tennessee supports Yasser, his family, his attorney Jay Fearnley as he petitions the courts for his client’s release, and every Memphian demanding his freedom. The pursuit of the American Dream is a national promise. Right now, a teenage soccer star is sitting in a cell in Mason, Tennessee, waiting to find out if we still intend to keep that promise.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) is an affiliate of the national ACLU. For more than 50 years, ACLU-TN has worked to defend the principles of liberty, equality, and justice guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Learn more at www.aclu-tn.org.