A TOUGH IMMIGRATION CASE. Two U.S. senators and two members of the House from Arizona are pressing the Trump administration to intervene in the deportation case of a restaurant owner in the Phoenix area. As sometimes happens in these stories, there has been a lot of heart-tugging rhetoric. But sometimes a heart-tugging story is not exactly what it seems.
The case involves Kelly Yu, who owns and runs Kawaii Sushi and Asian Cuisine in Peoria and Glendale, Arizona. Yu, originally from China, crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into the United States illegally in 2004, when she was 18 and pregnant. Her daughter was born a short time later and is a U.S. citizen. Yu was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2024 and has been in custody on and off for several months. She was recently released.
Now she is fighting deportation. She has on her side Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) and Reps. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) and Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ). Last September, when she was in detention, the lawmakers wrote to President Donald Trump asking that he release her.
“After fleeing a repressive regime as a teen, Kelly has now lived more years of her life in the United States,” they wrote. “In that time, she started a family, set deep roots in our community in Arizona, became a job creator and is a lawful, contributing member of our society.” Last week, a judge ordered Yu released. She is now under court supervision.
So why was Yu held? She was held because there is more to her story than the Democratic lawmakers said. The following is from a number of news reports on Yu’s case.
After entering illegally with the aid of a human smuggler in 2004, Yu applied for asylum in the U.S. on the basis of her desire to escape China’s one-child policy. In 2005, she was denied asylum and given a final order of removal by an immigration judge. That indicates that Yu was given full due process and should have left the country voluntarily or been deported at that time.
But Yu did not leave, and she was not deported. The news reports say that Yu appealed her order of removal several years later, in 2013, and lost. She appealed the order again in 2016 and lost again. Still, more legal process did not change her status.
In October 2024, when Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, was president, ICE arrested Yu and sent her to a detention center in Prairieland, Texas. In January 2025, Yu, still in detention, married U.S. citizen Aldo Urquiza, with whom she worked at her restaurant. This is an account from the Phoenix New Times:
“The pair had been dating for nearly five years, having worked closely together at Kawaii [the restaurant]. In January [2025], Urquiza flew to Prairieland to marry her in a sterile 6 a.m. ceremony, with Yu and Urquiza separated by a glass partition. On the guest list: two security guards and a priest. ‘I felt like I was marrying a criminal,’ Urquiza said, adding that he was ‘crying the whole way’ from the detention center to Prairieland City Hall to have the marriage recorded.”
Now, at this late point in her legal battle, Yu is both the mother of a U.S. citizen, the daughter she was carrying when she entered the country illegally in 2004, and the wife of a U.S. citizen, the co-worker she married while in immigration detention. In their letter to Trump, the Democratic lawmakers twice cited that as a reason the administration should allow Yu to stay in the U.S. “As the immediate family member of two Americans, Kelly has a legal path to remain in the United States,” they wrote. Mark Kelly, according to Phoenix New Times, has been trying to expedite Urquiza’s I-130 petition, “which is the first step for the foreign-born family member of a U.S. citizen to immigrate to the country, before Yu is deported.”
So what to make of all this? First of all, U.S. authorities should have deported Yu two decades ago, when her asylum claim was denied and she received a final order of removal. Failing that, they should have deported her 10 years ago, when she lost two appeals of that order of removal. But the authorities did not act on either occasion.
Yu’s supporters note that she has attended required meetings with immigration officials over the years. Indeed, after having been released from her first detention that began in October 2024, Yu was at such a meeting in May 2025 when she was detained again and held until last week.
Supporters also stress that Yu has not committed any crimes beyond those in her immigration case. They say she has strong ties to Arizona, and her restaurants have “donated meals to local homeless shelters, supported Peoria police officers, and provided funding for high school baseball teams,” according to an NBC 12News story. “She gives back to the community, creates jobs for young people, pays taxes,” her husband said. “Why would you want to remove someone like that?”
On the other hand, can anyone deny that Yu has treated U.S. immigration law with contempt for more than twenty years? First, she crossed illegally into the U.S. Then, having been denied asylum, she defied a final order of removal. Then, in 2013, she defied the loss of her appeal of that removal order. Then, in 2016, she defied another loss in another appeal of that removal order. Finally, in custody and with removal looming, she married a U.S. citizen, who immediately began petitioning authorities that his immigrant wife should not be deported.
“Lai Kuen Yu, an illegal alien from Hong Kong, was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona on February 4, 2004, and two days later was released into the country,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “She exhausted all her due process and appeals. She has no legal pathways to remain in the U.S.”
If she is deported, Yu is likely to be sent to Hong Kong. According to the Phoenix New Times, she and her husband are thinking ahead. After she has been in Hong Kong for several weeks, she will likely be allowed to travel internationally. “For their future together, Urquiza and Yu and looking south,” the Phoenix New Times reported. “Urquiza likes the idea of opening a Kawaii location in Puerto Penasco, Mexico — known to Arizona tourists as Rocky Point. The pair could find a home there and Urquiza could travel to [Arizona] and back to manage their other properties. Urquiza said he has a lot of family in Mexico and is already working to obtain dual Mexican and American citizenship.”
So Yu has options. They are not the options she wants right now, but if nothing else, her case proves there can be a price for defying American law for more than two decades.