Lisandro Pantaleon Pacheco had purchased the ring.

The little jewelry box and receipt was one of the first things his family found in his room after he was detained by immigration agents last week. They knew what it meant: The 22-year-old from Park City was planning to propose to his longtime girlfriend.

But now, with Pantaleon Pacheco being held in a detention center in Evanston, Wyoming — where he was transferred after his arrest on April 29 — the timing of that is up in the air.

Pantaleon Pacheco confirmed to his family in a call from the detention center that he had been planning to propose to his girlfriend, Britney Xiques, on May 1. Now it’s unclear when he might be released.

Xiques said the surprise of the proposal was ruined by his detainment, but she is looking forward to spending her life with him when he’s out. And she is pushing hard for that.

“We all feel emptiness in our hearts without him here,” she said.

His family has hired Adam Crayk, an experienced immigration attorney in Utah who has taken on more cases like Pantaleon Pacheco’s since President Donald Trump’s administration has been cracking down on immigration enforcement.

Crayk said last week that he is filing a petition, the first step to get Pantaleon Pacheco released. But he doesn’t know how long it will take to be processed.

The news of his detainment first attracted attention after Pantaleon Pacheco’s family said he was planning to graduate two days after he was detained, and shared photos of his cap and gown hanging in his closet. But, they say, he later told them from the detention center that was not the case and that he felt pressure to keep up appearances with his education as the first in his family to go to college.

He had run out of money, he told them, and wasn’t able to keep going.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, issued a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune confirming Pantaleon Pacheco’s arrest. The online detainee locator for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also shows Pantaleon Pacheco in its system.

“He entered the United States illegally at an unknown date and time,” a spokesperson for DHS said. “He will receive full due process and remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his immigration proceedings.”

Pantaleon Pacheco’s family says that during a call from the detention center, he told them he had been driving to his first day of work at a bagel shop in Park City early Wednesday when an ICE agent stopped him.

Crayk said, at this point, he is unaware of anything Pantaleon Pacheco did that would have prompted a traffic stop. The attorney believes Pantaleon Pacheco was racially profiled based on his skin color.

Park City radio station KCPW reported that ICE agents were seen stopping vehicles in Summit County last week.

Pantaleon Pacheco has no Utah criminal record as an adult or juvenile. His only public court record is one traffic citation in Summit County justice court from May 2025 for driving without a valid license.

Pantaleon Pacheco was brought to the United States from Mexico by his mother when he was one year old, Crayk said, around 2005.

He had filed to be part of the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program when President Joe Biden was in office. But new applications were quickly shut down under a court stay, and Pantaleon Pacheco had not heard back on his status.

“He was trying to do anything he could,” Crayk said. “He didn’t choose to come here.”

The DHS spokesperson responded by saying, “Being in detention is a choice.”

In its statement, the department added: “The United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream.”

Xiques figured out Pantaleon Pacheco had been detained when she couldn’t reach him. She usually sends him a text to start each day with, “Good morning.” But he didn’t answer.

She thought he may have been busy or didn’t see it. When he still didn’t respond or pick up her calls hours later, she said, she started to worry. She then tracked his location on her phone and saw that he was driving back down the canyon to Salt Lake County.

The little blue dot representing Pantaleon Pacheco stopped in West Valley City. When Xiques looked up the address on Decker Lake Drive, it was listed as an immigration court. She felt like she couldn’t breathe.

“That’s when I really started to panic,” she said.

She tried calling him and other family members. Finally, by 9 a.m., Pantaleon Pacheco called her from the court and told her he had been detained. The call was short.

“He was nervous,” she said. “And he was scared.”

The next time she heard from Pantaleon Pacheco, he had called from the detention center about 2 p.m. Xiques said Pantaleon Pacheco has been trying to stay positive and, she said with a smile, “he’s, like, making friends there. Who does that? He’s the kind of person who does.”

When he called, she said, his first question is always: “How is everyone? How is my family? How’s my baby brother?” His brother is 13, and Xiques says they are very close.

She first met Pantaleon Pacheco at the University of Utah during her freshman year. They had both enrolled in a class for first-generation students.

“He caught my eye,” she said. “He’s so cute.”

It was a big class, though, and the two didn’t talk much. But the next semester, Xiques said, he followed her on Instagram — on Valentine’s Day. “It felt cosmic, almost,” she said. They started talking and then hanging out; they’ve now been dating for two years.

The U. confirmed that Pantaleon Pacheco had previously been a student there. But he later stopped taking classes.

His family said they hope he will be able to return to school one day. Xiques said Pantaleon Pacheco wants to be a park ranger because he loves being out in nature exploring and biking after growing up in Park City. He came alive when the couple recently visited Arches National Park in southeastern Utah.

The family is currently asking for donations through a GoFundMe campaign to help cover attorney fees and the costs to get Pantaleon Pacheco released on bail.