DHS files new deportation case against Tucson DACA recipient

On June 3 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement filed a second "notice to appear" in immigration court for Toledo. The move came just one day after the agency dismissed its first deportation case against her, following a public outcry.

Toledo's immigration attorney Mo Goldman said he and Toledo, 31, waited to publicly discuss the new deportation filing to allow Toledo some time to adjust to the news.

"They're weaponizing the law against this woman," Goldman told the Arizona Daily Star on Tuesday.

He plans to file another motion to terminate the deportation proceedings against Toledo, who has no criminal record and has had protection from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program since 2012. 

"She has DACA, she hasn’t done anything to warrant what they’re doing to her," Goldman said. "They claim they’re going after the 'worst of the worst,' and yet they’re using our resources to go after a woman who has lived a clean life and hasn’t done anything that would violate the terms of her DACA, or put her in a position where she should be a priority for removal."

Tucson immigration judge Irene Feldman dismissed the first deportation case against Toledo June 2, after ICE's attorney filed a motion that said, "Circumstances of the respondent's case have changed after the notice to appear was issued to such an extent that continuation is no longer in the best interest of DHS."

But in a June 17 statement to the Star, an unnamed DHS spokesperson said the deportation case against Toledo "was refiled jointly with her husband, so they can face removal proceedings as a family unit."

Toledo's DACA status is valid through July, but her renewal application is still being processed, five months after she submitted it, Toledo said earlier this month.

Advocates claim the U.S. government is deliberately slowing down DACA renewal processing — which DACA recipients must go through every two years — in order to render more people vulnerable to deportation.

DHS has falsely implied in emailed statements that Toledo's DACA status was not current, wrongly describing her DACA as "pending."

DHS also claimed Toledo "illegally" entered the country in 2024, which Toledo and her attorney have denied. Toledo traveled outside the U.S. in 2024 using "advance parole" permission, which allowed for multiple re-entries to the U.S., and she was legally admitted to the U.S. by a port official at the time, Goldman said.

DHS has also claimed, without providing evidence, that Toledo assaulted an ICE officer during her May 18 arrest, when she said two agents "aggressively" entered her home without a warrant. The arrest was captured on Toledo's home surveillance video.

But nearly a month later, no criminal charges have been filed against Toledo, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona.

Toledo told the Star, while she was still detained at Eloy Detention Center last month, that a Tucson ICE official threatened her with criminal charges for the alleged assault unless she "turned in" her husband, who became undocumented after DHS revoked his Temporary Protected Status.

Toledo's mother Veronica Ortiz asked Tuesday for prayers for her daughter, who was brought to the U.S. from Sonora, Mexico when she was 1 year old.

"My daughter doesn't deserve to go through this. She came to this country when he was just a year old, and this is the only home she's ever really known," Ortiz said in a Facebook post, written in Spanish. "... Those who know her know she has a noble and generous heart. She is a beautiful human being who deserves to live with dignity, tranquility and hope."