Update: Toledo’s attorney Mo Goldman told media that she is set to be released Friday on a cash bond of $1,500, the Tucson Sentinel reported. Tucson Police Chief Monica Prieto also said her officers should have allowed a local attorney denied access to the ICE building to make a request to federal officers instead of blocking her access to the facility on Monday.
Karla Toledo’s mother spent most of Wednesday’s press conference quietly shedding tears as she listened to an attorney and others discuss her daughter’s immigration case.
It was two days since immigration agents arrested Toledo at her Tucson home. At first, Veronica Ortiz had no idea where the masked agents took her daughter. Soon an entire Southern Arizona community, from concerned neighbors to U.S. Congress members, surrounded Toledo and her family.
They organized protests against agents of the U.S. federal government capturing a Tucson immigrant who has lived in Arizona since she was a child. They organized an online fundraiser for her legal fees. And local attorneys stepped in to represent Toledo.
Ortiz thanked people who had shared the news of her daughter’s arrest and her pain at the injustice of her detention.
“My daughter deserves to be free,” Ortiz said in Spanish.
The family and advocates thought Toledo was in a detention center in Florence. They’ve now confirmed, federal law enforcement is holding her at the Eloy Detention Center, run by private prison corporation CoreCivic. Immigration experts have decried dangerous conditions at the facility, which has a long history of medical neglect and conditions that have led to injuries and death.
Toledo’s supporters held the press conference to respond to immigration authorities’ public comments about her arrest.
In a media statement released Tuesday morning, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement public affairs officer Monica Yoas said Toledo had assaulted a police officer during her arrest on Monday.
In response, Toledo’s attorney Mo Goldman said those allegations were fabricated.
“There is surveillance footage that shows Ms. Toledo did not assault a DHS officer,” he said.
Toledo is a community organizer and social media influencer with immigration status via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals federal program, commonly known as DACA. She worked to support struggling families to pay rent and buy food during COVID-19.
DACA gives young immigrants, brought to the country as children, legal protection from deportation, as well as the right to work in the United States.
Toledo is 31 and among the thousands of Dreamers — a name for young immigrants who grew up in the U.S. — who remain stuck in government limbo amid no congressional action on immigration reform, and increasingly scared of the Trump administration’s aggressive, and at times, illegal approach to a federal mass deportation strategy.
Indeed, Toledo’s attorneys and supporters said Wednesday that the young woman had been unfairly targeted as part of the Trump administration’s broader attack on immigrant communities.
Toledo’s experience is just one example of residents with DACA status across the nation who believed they had protection from deportation, which is now being challenged under the second Trump administration.
The DACA program is in ongoing court litigation. The program did not give permanent legal status, but rather an exercise of prosecutorial discretion that both parties had respected for decades.
Under the Trump administration, the Board of Immigration Appeals, which sets standards for immigration courts nationally, said in an April case that being a DACA recipient does not automatically provide relief from deportation.
Instead, immigration judges were advised to look more closely at the specific context surrounding each individual’s case to make a determination. That advice could make it harder for DACA recipients to get their removal cases closed.
Speakers at the press conference also stressed their concerns about how the raid had been conducted.
“Occupants of the home, including Ms. Toledo, did not consent to their entry,” Goldman said. “DHS agents did not possess a judicial warrant that would authorize entry into their home. Ms. Toledo requested a warrant and the officer refused to provide one, as required by law.”
Federal officials did not specifically respond to Arizona Luminaria’s question about whether officers had a warrant to enter Toledo’s home.
The Trump administration’s top border official Tom Homan, speaking at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix earlier this month, defended the administration’s immigration policies, even as recent poll numbers show it has become increasingly unpopular.
“You ain’t seen shit yet. This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming,” he said, speaking at a conference geared to enforcement personnel and companies.
“We’re going to flood the zone. You’re going to see more ICE agents (than) you ever seen before.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
