Peoria restaurateur will be deported to China soon, husband fears

Ten months ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Peoria restaurant owner Kelly Yu in her driveway. Since then, Yu has been sent to several detention centers across the country, released with an ankle monitor and then arrested again. Since May, ICE has held her at its notorious Eloy Detention Center.

Yu has been fighting to stay in the country much longer than that. After fleeing China as a pregnant 18-year-old — her daughter, Zita, is now 21 and was born a U.S. citizen — Yu has struggled for decades to remain in America despite lacking legal status. Her asylum claim was denied in 2004 and she was given a removal order in 2005. Her final appeal was dismissed in 2016.

In the meantime, the 40-year-old Yu built the West Valley eatery Kawaii Sushi and Asian Cuisine into a popular and thriving business. Yu employs 30 people at her two Kawaii locations and is also the co-owner of Poke Maki, a counterservice poke “culinary fusion concept” in Glendale, according to Kawaii’s website. A third Kawaii location in the West Valley is also in the process of opening.

Yu’s case has attracted the attention of the media and lawmakers, including several in Arizona’s congressional delegation who have met with Yu and her family. Despite that, Yu’s husband, Aldo Urquiza, told Phoenix New Times that the family has “lost faith” in the prospect of preventing Yu’s deportation. The family has already begun planning for Yu to be sent back to China, where she hasn’t lived in decades.

“I honestly threw in the towel,” Urquiza said.

At this point, he added, “only the President can help, really,” which he knows “won’t happen.” If her deportation is inevitable, Urquiza said, he’s just as soon get it over with so the family can start figuring out the next chapter of their lives. Better than being locked up in Eloy.

“I can’t stand seeing her detained,” he told New Times on Monday. “I’m really sick of seeing her inside. I can’t even go home. I sometimes sleep in my driveway in my car because I hate going in.”

Married in lockup

Yu’s detention began in October, when President Joe Biden was in office. Despite having no criminal record, ICE arrested her and sent her to Eloy before shipping her to a detention center in Prairieland, Texas. There, she and Urquiza were married.

The pair had been dating for nearly five years, having worked closely together at Kawaii. In January, 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.

“It 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.

Yu was then transferred to New Orleans and later sent back to Eloy. There, she was released and returned home after 90 days, but was forced to wear an ankle monitor. Then, at a routine meeting with ICE officials in May, she was detained again and sent back to Eloy, where she has been ever since.

Urquiza and Yu’s daughter are able to stay in constant contact with her, but “everything costs money,” Urquiza said. He visits her in Eloy every Sunday, but otherwise she has to call him. He can text her anytime he wants, but each word he sends costs “like 25 cents.” Plus, with the facility’s “pathetic” food and Yu’s instinct to help others, Urquiza is sending her sometimes as much as $300 a week. He jokes with her that she’s “more expensive inside than outside.”

Yu has been at Eloy for four months now, during which time a host of lawmakers have rallied to Yu’s cause. Rep. Greg Stanton visited Yu in Eloy earlier this month. Sen. Mark Kelly also visited her a couple of days later. Kelly 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 — a logistical challenge Urquiza said “is gonna be impossible.” Sen. Ruben Gallego also met with Urquiza at Kawaii Sushi on Tuesday.

“I had many people who were advocating for her, including members of my own family who were regular customers who knew her,” Stanton told New Times last week. “It does not serve Americans’ interests that Kelly Yu would be deported from the United States of America back to communist China.”

Despite that attention, Urquiza knows Yu is “running out of time.” Yu is subject to a removal order signed by an immigration judge, which doesn’t give her much wiggle room in her case. Urquiza said ICE officials told him that they’re just waiting for Yu’s Chinese passport and transportation documents to arrive, which should take four to five weeks. That was five weeks ago.

“Right now, where we stand, she can get deported any day,” Urquiza said. “They’ll probably just wake her up in the morning (and say), ‘Hey, you get sent right now.’ So they don’t give you no warning.”

All that’s left to do is prepare for what comes next.

Preparing for deportation

President Donald Trump reclaimed the White House on a platform of mass deportation, among other far-right policy aims. Urquiza knows, because he voted for him.

Immigration wasn’t the deciding factor for Urquiza — rather, it was “the whole gender bullcrap,” he said — and he said he’s “not really” regretful of his vote. But he doesn’t believe the administration’s propaganda that ICE is targeting only criminal immigrants and the worst of the worst for deportation.

“All bullcrap,” Urquiza said. “He’s going after everyone.”

His wife’s ordeal has shaken his faith in America. “It’s a lot of nightmares now. Somebody’s carving my heart with a spoon,” Urquiza said. “It doesn’t make me hate my country, but it makes me want to leave it.” Instead, he finds himself preparing for his wife to depart.

Urquiza has been working to pack up some of Yu’s items that she can take to China, but even getting “basic information from that detention center is a nightmare,” he said. At first, ICE officials told Urquiza he could pack Yu a carry-on suitcase under 40 pounds. But then he was told she’ll be able to bring only a small backpack with “maybe a bra, a pair of underwear, t-shirt, a sweatshirt, that’s it,” Urquiza recalled. A spokesperson for ICE acknowledged but did not respond to questions about what Yu will be able to bring if she is deported.

It’s possible that Yu could be sent to China with nothing at all, according to Salvador Macias, an immigration lawyer who is not involved in Yu’s case. Macias said ICE has failed to send belongings and important documents along with several of his clients who have been deported, resulting in them arriving in a different country with basically nothing. “For all I know,” Macias said, ICE will do everything to “not lose track of anything." But, he added, “it’s kind of hard to have faith in an agency that will really just disregard all her time here and all the good stuff that she’s done.”

Yu has a sister in Hong Kong, which is under Chinese rule, and another in Singapore, offering her somewhat of a support system. Urquiza plans to visit her as soon as he can, but he said it’s unlikely Yu will remain in China for long. It will take her four to five weeks to apply for a travel visa, Urquiza said, but once she has one, “She can go anywhere in the world.”

Except, that is, the United States. Because Yu has defied a deportation order and has been in the country illegally for more than a year, Urquiza expects his wife to face a 10-year ban from reentering the U.S. There are avenues to cut that short — including Urquiza’s I-130 petition — but even optimistically, Macias said, Yu could still be barred from the country for three to five years.

So, for their future together, Urquiza and Yu are looking south. Urquiza likes the idea of opening a Kawaii location in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico — known to Arizona tourists as Rocky Point. The pair could find a home there and Urquiza could travel to the Valley and back to manage their other properties. Urquiza said he has a lot of family in Mexico is already working to obtain dual Mexican and American citizenship.

“We have a lot of loyal customers who go to Rocky Point,” he recalled telling Yu. “Guaranteed, they’d love to see you and they will go see you.”

Until then, Urquiza is running Kawaii’s restaurants without Yu by his side. The restaurants are made busier by all the customers concerned about Yu’s well-being. “Everybody knows and loves Kelly around this area,” Urquiza said, and almost every customer asks about how she’s doing. Urquiza finds himself telling Yu’s story over and over again, until the emotions of it force him to tap out.

“Even at one point I told my server, ‘Take over,'” he said. “I gotta leave because I’m going to lose it. It just shreds my heart piece by piece.”