PHOENIX – On Tuesday, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) met with the family of Kelly Yu, a mother and local restaurant owner who has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since May after living in the United States for the past 21 years.
READ MORE: Family of Valley business owner facing deportation meets with Senator Gallego
Kelly Yu fled China as a teenager in 2004 after learning she was pregnant, seeking asylum in the U.S. to escape the country’s one-child policy. Since then, she has built a life here: opening two popular restaurants in Peoria, marrying a U.S. citizen, and raising a daughter—now a college student and U.S. citizen herself. Over the past two decades Yu has routinely checked in with ICE. In May, during one of these routine check-ins Yu was detained by ICE despite having no criminal record.
At the meeting, Gallego highlighted how Ms. Yu’s case exemplifies the country’s broken immigration system under the Trump administration.
“This administration has prioritized arbitrary quotas instead of a humane process of dealing with illegal immigration,” said Senator Gallego.
“If we’re a country that values families, why are we separating families? If we’re a country that values entrepreneurs, that values people that want to be part of a real American institution, why are we kicking them out of this country?” said Senator Gallego. “We all lose as a country when we lose the Kelly Yu’s of the world.”
In May, Senator Gallego and other Arizona Democrats pressed the Trump Administration for answers on its recent initiatives to target and arrest immigrants at their immigration court hearings in Phoenix, diverting resources to detaining law-abiding individuals instead of violent criminals.
8/14/25