A 29-year-old Utah father and soccer coach without a criminal record was taken into ICE custody during his final interview before receiving a permanent resident card, according to the man’s attorney — and his family is now fighting to have him released on bond.
And, on Monday, a couple dozen Utahns met outside of federal immigration authorities’ Salt Lake City field offices to protest the arrest.
Jair Celis, who is married to a U.S. citizen, was at a green card interview with his wife, Lexie Celis, last Tuesday when an officer asked to speak with the husband and wife separately, attorney Andy Armstrong of the firm Stowell Crayk, PLLC said in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune.
Instead of being led into an interview room, however, Celis was taken into another room where two Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained him. He is now being held in a detention facility in Arizona, according to his attorney.
(GoFundMe) Jair Celis, right, with his wife, Lexie, in an undated photograph.
Celis has been married to his wife for five years and is the father of a four-year-old. He originally came to the United States from Mexico 18 years ago at the age of 11 with his family on a tourist visa.
“Had he not been detained,” Armstrong said, “30 minutes later, an officer would have recommended that he be approved for a green card.”
Celis overstayed his original visa, but he and his wife, Armstrong said, were “following exactly” the process to get Jair proper status.
“That process will end up with him getting a green card because he’s eligible,” Celis’s attorney said Monday, adding that because he is married to a U.S. citizen, U.S. immigration law allows him to now adjust his status and get permanent residency.
“There’s nothing in Jair’s background at all that would have given a rationale or that would have made him ineligible for residency,” Armstrong said. “He doesn’t have a criminal record and he’s married to an American citizen. He’s got a lawful entry.”
A search by The Salt Lake Tribune revealed no criminal record in Utah for Celis.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment regarding Celis’s arrest.
In a statement to The Tribune, USCIS did not address the specifics of Celis’s detention.
“Apprehensions at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices may occur if individuals are identified as having outstanding warrants; being subject to court-issued removal orders; or having committed fraud, crimes, or other violations of immigration law while in the United States,” USCIS Spokesperson Matthew J. Tragesser said in an email Monday afternoon. “These actions are typically carried out by law enforcement partners.”
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Protestors gather outside of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Salt Lake City on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.
Armstrong said he would be submitting a request for Celis to be released on bond later Monday, which will be considered by an immigration judge. As part of the request, he said, he is submitting some 75 character statements from people who know Celis, including people he coached as a soccer coach in Utah.
The judge, Armstrong said, “absolutely should find he’s not dangerous to the community,” and, given that Celis is married to a U.S. citizen, Armstrong said he believes the judge also should not consider Celis a flight risk. The attorney said he believes the judge will grant Celis bond “at a very low amount.”
Holding someone at an immigration detention center, Armstrong said, costs between $150 and $200 a day, not including the costs of transfer and processing logistics.
“It’s a waste of government taxpayer money to take him into custody and detain him,” Armstrong said, adding that he was confident there is no chance Celis will be deported. “This is entirely unnecessary and a total waste of resources, and the kind of thing that every taxpayer should look at and say, ‘Look, this doesn’t seem like the right thing.’”
Celis’s detention was the first time the attorney said his firm had seen a client be arrested during a green card interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, though he noted that similar instances have occurred in other states.
According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Department of Homeland Security delegated some immigration enforcement authority to the director of USCIS, a change, the group wrote in a July memo, that overturned “longstanding precedent without Congressional authority to do so.”
The presence of ICE at USCIS offices, they wrote, “will have a chilling effect on legal immigration” and “creates unnecessary and traumatizing separation of families.”
“Impacted individuals have built lives in this country and are now part of the community,” the memo read. “U.S. citizens who are petitioning for their family members experience great hardship due to the administration separating their families with these arrests.”
(Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
Protesting Celis’s arrest
A crowd of about 30 people, including some friends of Celis’s, gathered Monday to protest outside the Salt Lake City field office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
One woman held a sign that read “Bring Jair home.” Another read “Take felons, not coaches.” The protestors waved a large Mexican flag as they chanted: “Money for jobs and education, not for ICE and deportation!”
Liz Maryon, with Salt Lake Community Bail Fund, an organizer of the event, told protestors said she and other volunteers had been stationed outside the federal offices to monitor people as they entered and left the office for immigration hearings.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Liz Maryon, a volunteer with the Salt Lake Community Bail Fund, speaks to other protestors outside of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in Salt Lake City on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025.
So far, Maryon said, no one who had gone in for pre-scheduled hearings Monday appeared to be detained.
“If ICE was planning on doing some detentions today, it’s clear they’re successfully being deterred,” said Maryon, while wearing an orange vest and speaking into a small bullhorn. “They know we’re going to be aware of it and are going to make a huge fuss about it if they continue to try to detain people.”
She said protestors would mount consistent efforts to oppose a major detention camp from being built in Utah and work toward canceling city agreements promoting greater collaboration with federal immigration officials, known as 287(G) pacts.
“We really want ICE out of Utah,” Maryon said, to cheers and approval from the small crowd.
A GoFundMe benefitting Celis’s family created last week has raised more than $43,000 as of Monday afternoon.
“My sister, Lexie, and her husband, Jair, have spent years trying to secure his legal status the right way,” the fundraiser organizer wrote. Celis’s detention, they added, was devastating for his wife, who called it “the most traumatic experience of her life.”
“Jair is now in detention,” the description reads, “separated from his wife and son, likely facing the holidays alone.”