A hallway of the IAH Secure Adult Detention Facility in Livingston, Texas, where Luis Fernandez (inset) is being held. Photos: Screenshot of facility from video by MTC Management & Training Corp.; Fernandez by Donna Ferrato
UPDATE JULY 10, 2025: This story now includes a statement to the Trib from an ICE spokesperson.
For seven years, until last month, Luis Fernandez waited tables at Square Diner in Tribeca. Now he is reportedly cooking for fellow inmates at an immigration detention center, 1,500 miles away in Texas.
Fernandez, 50, a native of Ecuador who has lived in the U.S. for 35 years, was picked up by ICE agents on June 24 at an immigration office in Long Island. Those who work with him say that he has a valid Green Card and it is unclear why he was at the center or the reason for his arrest. Fernando Santos, the Square Diner manager who has been in brief phone contact with Fernandez, said he was first transferred to the immigration facility at 26 Federal Plaza, then to New Jersey, then Maryland and finally to the IAH Secure Adult Detention Facility in Livingston, Texas, 75 miles north of Houston.
The good news is, it looks like he might be coming home.
Last Saturday, Santos was at work when Fernandez called.
“He told me that he’s hopefully going to be coming back next week,” Santos told the Trib on Monday.
According to a statement to the Trib by an ICE spokesperson, received on July 10, Fernandez entered the U.S. illegally and “has been convicted twice for driving while intoxicated directly putting the lives of law-abiding residents in danger.”
“Fernandez has not been granted lawful permanent resident status or any other status or immigration benefit that prevents ICE from detaining and deporting him from the U.S,” the spokesperson said in the statement.
A spokesperson for the Fernandez family, which includes two minors, declined to discuss details of Fernandez’s detention but confirmed that he has legal representation.
A person at the Texas facility said information about inmates is not provided to reporters.
Co-workers speak glowingly of Fernandez, calling him generous and hardworking, and his seizure by ICE “tragic.”
“We talk every minute about him,” said Irma, a Square Diner waitress who asked that only her first name be used. “He has such a big heart, everybody loves him.” She added, “His problem is he works all the time. Sometimes he goes in the corner and he has to call the children, because he misses them, but he has to work long hours. He’s like the best father I’ve ever seen.”
“You’re feeling sick, you need a day off, he’s there to back you up,” Santos said. “Even after working six days in a row and he needs a day off, if you’re not feeling well or you need a day off, he is there for you. He just has a golden heart.”
Santos said Fernandez told him of the harsh conditions at 26 Federal Plaza, where he spent three days and nights. “Breakfast was a bottle of water and a bagel, lunch was a bottle of water and a chocolate chip cookie. Nothing else,” Santos said he was told. There was no dinner, he said, and detainees slept on the floor.
On the phone, Santos said, Fernandez tries to sound optimistic, “but there is a tone that says no, he’s down, depressed, lonely, I don’t know, worried. It’s not the guy I’ve been talking to the past seven years.”
Kristopher Brown, a lawyer and long-time Leonard Street resident who lives near the diner, wrote a letter to the ICE office at 26 Federal Plaza, imploring officials “to give consideration to…the fact that [Fernandez] was trying to abide by all U.S. laws, and release him from ICE custody as soon as possible.” He received no response. But Tribeca resident Winsome Brown (no relation) posted the letter on Instagram and got quite a response—some 76,500 views, “more than anything else I’ve ever posted,” she said.
“Over the many years now, I’ve been at Square Diner hundreds of times, I suppose. So Luis is just a part of the fabric of the neighborhood,” Kristopher Brown told the Trib.
“I seem to be reading and hearing about more and more examples of ICE overreach with each passing day,” he added. “So I always said to myself that when and if it hit home, I would do what I could to take some type of stand. I think we all have to stand up for what we know is right.”