Friends of detained Peoria restaurateur plan last-ditch plea to Trump

Sitting around a back corner table at a Peoria sushi restaurant on Wednesday night, Aldo Urquiza leaned in so his wife could hear him better.

“Hello, lady,” Urquiza said playfully. “How can I help you? Do you want to order a double cheeseburger and fries?”

“Orange chicken, please,” his wife, Kelly Yu, responded with a giggle.

It’s a more apt order for the setting, as Yu would know. This restaurant, Kawaii Sushi and Asian Cuisine, is hers. She also knew no one was going to spring from the kitchen with her meal. While Urquiza sat in the busy restaurant, Yu was nearly 80 miles away in an immigration detention center in Eloy. This conversation, like so many between Yu and Urquiza in the last several months, was conducted over video chat. Urquiza’s phone was propped up on a happy hour menu while supporters of Yu crowded around.

Since May, Yu has been locked up in Eloy Detention Center, where she awaits deportation to her native China. She fled the communist country as a pregnant 18-year-old more than two decades ago, settling in Arizona and building a family and a thriving business. Kawaii Sushi is a popular neighborhood hotspot. Yu’s daughter, Zita, is a U.S. citizen about to start her senior year at Arizona State University.

Yu seemed to have it all, except legal status. She filed a claim for asylum when she arrived in the U.S., but it was denied in 2004. In 2005, Yu was issued a removal order, which she appealed. Her final appeal was dismissed in 2016. Last year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested her and began deportation proceedings. In January, Urquiza, who is an American citizen, traveled to a Texas immigration center to marry her from the opposite side of a glass barrier. After being released with an ankle monitor, Yu was arrested again in May and sent to Eloy.

In the months since, her plight has attracted considerable attention. Several members of Arizona’s congressional delegation, notably all Democrats, have either met with Urquiza or traveled to Eloy to meet with Yu. (“Senator Ruben Gallego supports any efforts to stop the deportation of Kelly Yu," Gallego spokesperson Taylor Tasler wrote to Phoenix New Times in an email.) News organizations have covered her case as an example of President Donald Trump’s overzealous immigration crackdown. Even political opponents — GOP Legislative District 29 chair Lisa Everett and progressive organizer Brent Peak — have joined forces to support Yu.

“This is not America,” Everett said of Yu’s detention. “I’m literally doing anything I can to help her. It’s going to take overwhelming numbers.”

The outlook is bleak — indeed, earlier this month, Urquiza told New Times that he was all but resigned to the fact that Yu will be sent back to China. Before that happens, though, Yu’s supporters are planning one last Hail Mary.

With Everett’s help, they are planning to lobby Donald Trump directly.

“I wish I could speak my feelings to the president,” Yu told New Times over a video call from the detention center on Wednesday evening. “We may have come here illegally, but we are trying to ask for help. We deserve a second chance, so we can keep our family together.”

Appealing to Trump

Months earlier, Everett and Peak led opposing protests outside the offices of GOP Rep. Abe Hamadeh in Surprise. After hashing out ways to keep the peace over a meal at Whataburger, the two struck up a cordial relationship.

Last Sunday, Peak asked Everett if she “might be on the same page” about Yu’s detention. Everett was. Since that day, they’ve embarked on a full-court press to advocate for Yu’s release. Everett supports ICE arresting and deporting the “worst of the worst,” she said, but Yu — who has no criminal record outside of remaining in the country illegally — does not fit that bill.

“Anyone who doesn’t feel like Kelly’s case deserves a second look and we need to bring her home, I think that they have not listened with an open heart and an open mind to the story,” Everett said. “Life is not black and white, and that’s what they want to make it.”

Everett and all of Yu’s supporters hope Trump feels the same way. Urquiza, who voted for Trump, thinks the president is the only person who can do anything to stop his wife’s deportation. “He’s a human being as well,” Urquiza said. “That’s all I need from him, just listen to what I have to say.”

Getting the president’s attention isn’t easy, but Everett hopes she can help. She has begun reaching out to contacts in 17 states to call the White House’s communication line, which she has also called herself. Everett has not yet attempted to enlist Hamadeh, whose district includes Peoria, in the effort. A spokesperson for Hamadeh — whose parents overstayed their visa when he was a child before an immigration judge granted them reprieve from deportation — did not return a request for comment on Yu’s case.

Whether Trump would take action on Yu’s case remains unknown. Given Trump’s anti-immigrant zeal — despite having married an immigrant himself — it might be a long shot.

“We’re putting up a fight,” Urquiza said. “And we’re not gonna give up until it’s over.”

If Trump were to intervene, he could do so in one of two ways, said Salvador Macias, a Phoenix-based immigration lawyer who is not involved in this case.

First, Trump could recommend that Kelly receive a bond hearing, which would allow Yu to be released back to her family but wouldn’t necessarily save her from deportation. However, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has cracked down on bond hearings and argued that immigration judges, who technically serve under the executive branch of government, don’t have jurisdiction to grant a bond hearing.

The second option is “trying to get her paroled,” Macias said, which wouldn’t “necessarily give her status, but just try to get her out.” Like with bond hearings, Trump’s administration has been uninterested in providing that option. However, Macias said, if Trump told ICE, “Hey, for this person, give them approval,” Yu could be released that way.

Either avenue would simply be a play for time, allowing time for the processing of Urquiza’s I-130 petition, which is a step toward allowing foreign family members to immigrate to the U.S.

Because immigration offenses are generally civil infractions and not criminal, Trump’s broad pardon power does not come into play. Trump could waive Yu’s two-decade-old “entrance into the country without inspection” misdemeanor, but she’d still lack residency. Trump cannot unilaterally grant legal status, which is a legislative power. For that same reason, President Barack Obama wasn’t able to give green cards to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Instead, he had to use an executive order to create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in order to prevent them from being deported to countries they barely knew.

Is Trump inclined to intervene? When asked about Yu’s case, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told New Times to reach out to ICE and did not respond to follow-up questions. ICE has not provided a statement on Yu’s case, though DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin previously told the Arizona Republic that Yu “has no legal pathways to remain in the U.S.”

Neighborhood legacy

Legal status or not, Yu has become a fixture of her community. Yu employs 30 people at her two sushi restaurants and is also the co-owner of a counterservice poke restaurant in Glendale. A third Kawaii Sushi location is in the process of opening in Peoria’s Trilogy neighborhood.

Her restaurants employ many students from nearby Liberty High School. She and Kawaii Sushi have been strong supporters of local baseball teams and the Peoria police and fire departments. Each holiday season, Kawaii provides platters of lo mein and fried rice to the first responders — although Urquiza admitted the fire department seems to like the pizza place next door better.

The restaurant “is Kelly’s dream,” Urquiza said. “I’m not gonna let it die.”

One longtime, loyal customer is Jeremy Helfgot, a political strategist who lives near Yu’s first Kawaii location. Helfgot met Yu when he first visited the restaurant in 2014 and has since been to Kawaii “more times than I can count." His favorite dishes are Yu’s Japanese pan-seared flounder and the Tsukiji sushi roll.

“I’ve asked her for the recipe. She’s not going to give it to me,” Helfgot said. “But as long as I keep enjoying it, I’ll keep asking for it.”

Yu, with her bubbly personality, was almost always there. She’d be out at the front greeting guests or walking around to tables to chat with regulars and newcomers alike. Another fixture of the restaurant is Zita, Yu’s daughter and “mini-me,” who splits her time between the restaurants and studying in Tempe.

Speaking via video chat from Eloy, Yu remains in high spirits, but she gets choked up talking about her daughter.

“It’s difficult not being there,” Yu said as a tear rolled down her cheek. “She’s going to graduate next year. I’m going to be missing her graduation. She just started dating and I’m missing the chance to meet her boyfriend.”

Through it all, Yu continues to advocate for others — even in Eloy. She’s connected other detainees’ husbands with Urquiza. At least three have come into Kawaii Sushi so Urquiza can help them navigate the process of seeing their wives, downloading the correct apps to connect with them and paying for commissary.

By the end of Wednesday evening, Urquiza’s phone had been passed around the restaurant so customers could offer Yu their best wishes. Wearing a large gray sweatshirt, Yu gave a double thumbs-up to the camera before Uquiza signed off. On the other side of the screen, she could see her American dream — her thriving restaurant, loving husband, successful daughter and supportive friends — but she has no idea when she’ll be surrounded by them again.

“Hang tight,” Helfgot told her. “We’re on it.”

“Thank you, I will keep my head up,” Yu responded. “Love you all.”