ARIZONA – On Monday, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) visited the Florence Detention Center to meet with constituents currently in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and to receive a tour of the facility from ICE personnel.
WATCH MORE: Sen. Gallego says Trump administration’s deportations go too far
One of the constituents Senator Gallego met with, Amin, fled political violence in Iran in 2001 with his wife, seeking safety from the Ayatollah’s regime. They have lived in the United States for more than two decades, raised two American-born sons – now 18 and 16. Despite their deep ties to the U.S. and lack of criminal history, both parents have been in ICE detention for four months after being pulled over at a traffic stop while on their way to pick up a birthday present for their son.
“This is the type of enforcement that is not needed, does not make us any safer. We should be allowing these people to be continuing their life,” said Senator Gallego. “They’re contributors to society, and this administration are targeting these types of people just so they can hit these arbitrary quotas.”
At a town hall in Apache Junction earlier this week, Senator Gallego criticized the Trump administration for diverting resources away from violent criminals and instead using them to detain law-abiding individuals and tear families apart.
“Some of the detainees we were talking to today, I want to say more than half have U.S. citizen kids. […] The problem we have right now is that what we’re seeing is […] that [ICE agents are] not really even given discretion anymore. They’re told to go pick up, and they have to hit a quota every day,” said Senator Gallego. “What we really need to do is overall fix the broken immigration system.”
On Tuesday, Senator Gallego met with the family of Kelly Yu, a Peoria mother and local restaurant owner who, like Amin, has been in ICE custody for months despite no criminal history and spending more than two decades living in the U.S.
In May, Senator Gallego released a five-pillar framework to secure the Southwest border and enact lasting immigration reform, including by expanding pathways to citizenship for Dreamers and long-term undocumented residents who contribute to our communities. The same month, 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.
8/15/25