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For weeks, Lorenzo Chavez Rascon has counted the days until his daughter’s birth.

But instead of preparing his West Valley City home for her arrival later this month, the 22‑year‑old has been shuffled from one federal detention center to another — from Wyoming to Arizona and now to a processing facility in Adelanto, California — after being taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February.

While detained, his attorney, Midvale immigration lawyer Alec Bracken, said Rascon was difficult to track.

“I couldn’t find him,” Bracken said, noting the young man was moved repeatedly and that his legal team wasn’t notified of his whereabouts until a federal judge Wednesday ordered ICE to provide that information, as well as meaningful access to counsel, within 24 hours.

The same judge also blocked his deportation, but Rascon remains in federal custody.

ICE first detained Rascon shortly after local authorities arrested him last month on suspicion of selling drugs, though investigators only recovered dried pinto beans at the scene.

Here’s what we know about the case.

‘Oh, these are beans’

Rascon had been driving friends home last month when they asked to make a quick stop at a hotel, said his cousin, Selene Flores.

Moments after they pulled up, Flores said, authorities surrounded the car.

His friends ran, but the cousin said Rascon stayed in the driver’s seat and was arrested on Feb. 23 in connection with a suspected drug sale.

“He was like, ‘I’m just taking them home. I don’t know what they had going on,’” Flores recounted. “When we talked to the cops, they told us that they have this whole operation because they thought that they had drugs in their car.”

But what police thought were illegal narcotics turned out to be dried pinto beans, Flores said.

“The interesting thing about it is, they were known to be beans from the very get-go,” his attorney said. “They opened them and said, ‘Oh, these are beans.’ They never tested them — they just knew immediately what they were.”

Despite that, his attorney said, Rascon was taken to Salt Lake County jail while prosecutors reviewed the case.

After the Salt Lake County district attorney’s office declined to file charges, ICE agents placed a detainer on Rascon, asking authorities to hold him beyond the 72-hour legal limit without charges.

Upon his release, ICE took him into custody, despite his ongoing asylum case and an approved U-visa petition — a temporary visa for certain undocumented people who cooperate with law enforcement — which places him in deferred action status, Bracken said.

This allows Rascon to remain in the U.S. while awaiting the lengthy processing of U-visa applications, Bracken said, which can take several years due to a national backlog.

For that reason, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby granted Rascon a temporary restraining order that blocks ICE from deporting him while Rascon challenges his detainment in federal court.

“It appears that Chavez’s deferred action status makes removal unforeseeable, and therefore unreasonable,” Shelby wrote.

Bracken told The Salt Lake Tribune on Friday that “still to this day, no charges have been brought” against his client.

“They didn’t go through any formal process to revoke his deferred action,” Bracken said. “They just say they have.”

Michael Kennedy, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Utah who according to court records is representing ICE and the Department of Homeland Security in the case, did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.

The government’s filings in the case, as well as those from Rascon’s legal team, could not be publicly reviewed as of Friday afternoon.

The Adelanto facility where Rascon remains in federal custody has faced scrutiny for alleged substandard medical care, unsafe conditions and safety violations, ABC 7 in California has reported.

“He’s just been having, like, a really hard time,” Flores said, noting that her cousin doesn’t want to miss his daughter’s birth.

The experience has also brought back memories of the months he spent detained as a teenager, Flores said. Then, though, he was with his mother.

“Now he’s all alone in there,” Flores said, “and he’s just scared.”

Building a life in Utah

The 22-year-old has lived in Utah since crossing the border from Mexico as a minor in 2017, said Flores.

He lives with his girlfriend, Samarit Solano, and has often taken on “side jobs” to support his family since graduating high school as he continues to pursue his asylum case, Flores said.

His family fled the country after his older brother was killed there, Flores said, and they spent about two months in a detention center before eventually settling in Utah, where she and other relatives live.

Flores said they immediately sought asylum, but their cases have been tied up for years.

Rascon has been supporting his mother since his brother’s death, Flores said, and “he’s grown to be someone who we all love and kind of depend on.”

“He was really close to his older brother,” Flores added, “so it really took a big toll on him.”

But being detained now has “triggered” him “all over again,” Flores said, and “he’s just overwhelmed with what could happen.”