7 days ago
After Community Push, Square Diner Server Will Be Released Following Two-Month ICE Detainment
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Luis Fernandez, a longtime server at Tribeca's Square Diner, is expected to go home within a day after a judge ordered his release from ICE custody on Monday, August 11. The decision follows weeks of organizing by neighbors, regulars, and coworkers who believe the arrest never should have happened.
Fernandez, originally from Ecuador, has lived in New York for over 35 years and has green-card status; he currently lives in Queens, is married, and has two children. For over seven years, he has been a familiar face behind the counter at the 100-year-old Square Diner (33 Leonard Street, at Varick Street), until he was detained on June 24 after checking in on his pending asylum application on Long Island. ICE confirmed the arrest in a statement to the Tribeca Citizen in July.
After Fernandez, 50, was detained in late June, according to the Tribeca Tribune, he went from 26 Federal Plaza to New Jersey to Maryland and finally to the IAH Polk Adult Detention Facility in Livingston, Texas. In the NYC facility, Fernandez says he was fed a bagel, a bottle of water, and a chocolate chip cookie each day, according to colleagues who kept in touch.
From the start, the community moved quickly to rally behind him. Kris Brown, a 25-year Tribeca resident who lives on the same block as the Square Diner, wrote a letter to ICE shortly after Fernandez was detained. 'After sharing [it] with a neighbor and friend, Winsome Brown [no relation], she posted it on her Instagram account, which went viral within a few days [and got] almost 200,000 views,' Brown tells Eater over email.
That attention, Brown says, 'led to additional attention to Luis's situation, outreach by the local Tribeca press … [and] a reach-out by my neighbor and a fellow lawyer Claude Millman, who I helped put in touch with Luis's friend and Square Diner coworker Irma Fernando.'
Through Fernando, Brown was connected with Fernandez's daughter Liset, and helped coordinate with the legal team ahead of a July 30 virtual status hearing. In the interim, 'We were able to be in touch with Luis via Liset to impress upon him the need to ask for a bond hearing … and to let the judge know that he was represented by counsel and had the money to post a bond, as well as remind the judge that he had a previously scheduled amnesty application pending,' say Brown.
Tribeca Citizen reports that, at Monday's bond hearing in Livingston, Texas, senior attorney Carl Relles represented Fernandez, after first-year associate Pam Rosero prepared the motion and supporting documents.
A GoFundMe campaign organized by Fernando with help from Brown and Millman raised more than $21,000 — enough to cover Fernandez's $5,000 bond, legal fees, and other expenses, according to Tribeca Citizen. The bond amount was lower than the $10,000 figure that's typical in similar cases.
Nationwide, according to a study from the Center for Migration Studies released in 2024, as many as 8.3 million undocumented immigrants work in the U.S. economy, representing 5.2 percent of the workforce. Of those, around a million people or more work in restaurants.
For many in the neighborhood, Fernandez's release is a win not just for him, but for a tight-knit community that refused to stand by. 'While Luis's record is not perfect,' Brown says, 'his transgressions occurred long ago, and since then, he has been an outstanding neighbor, worker, and father.'
In addition, Fernandez's next court date related to his previously scheduled amnesty application is scheduled for January 30, 2026. Until then, regulars are looking forward to having him back pouring coffee and trading stories at the Square Diner's counter — the same spot where his neighbors first rallied to bring him home.
