Transcript<\/p>\n
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST: <\/p>\n
When you walk through the door of Kawaii Sushi and Asian Cuisine, it’s like an oasis in the Arizona desert – cool, sleek and inviting.<\/p>\n
KELLY YU: I’m Kelly.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Hi.<\/p>\n
K YU: Nice to meet you.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Hi, Kelly. Nice to meet you too.<\/p>\n
Kelly Yu is the owner of this and three other restaurants here in the Phoenix metro area.<\/p>\n
So this is where they do the sushi rolls over here. Do you know how to roll sushi?<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: OK. Ok. When’d you learn that, or where’d you learn that?<\/p>\n
K YU: When you become a restaurant owner, you have to know everything.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: You have to know everything.<\/p>\n
(LAUGHTER)<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yes. Yeah.<\/p>\n
Hearing her laugh, you’d probably never know the uncertainty she’s living under. She could be forced to leave the life she’s built here at any moment.<\/p>\n
K YU: Now I master with sushi, Chinese kitchen. And I’m a bartender also.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Oh, really? So you can do it all.<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: So you can do that. OK.<\/p>\n
K YU: Three in one.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: (Laughter) Three in one. OK.<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: And then, so what’s the role that you’re known for here?<\/p>\n
K YU: Yeah. Wasabi rush (ph) is my favorite. It’s with yellowtail on the top.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: OK.<\/p>\n
K YU: It’s my creation.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: OK. Oh, I want to try that. I’m going to definitely try that.<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yes.<\/p>\n
Over the past decade, she’s gained a loyal base of customers, like Kathy Griffin (ph).<\/p>\n
KATHY GRIFFIN: It’s great. We come at least once a week.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Abigail Quinonez (ph) is sitting at one of the wooden tables.<\/p>\n
ABIGAIL QUINONEZ: The food’s good. It’s welcoming, and everybody here is really nice. And I just feel like a place like that really brings a community together.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: After the kitchen puts the finishing touches on my wasabi rush roll…<\/p>\n
(SOUNDBITE OF CHOPPING FOOD)<\/p>\n
RASCOE: …Kelly Yu brings it out.<\/p>\n
I can’t do a chopstick, so you got to just watch me put it in like this. It’s good with the wasabi. It’s really good.<\/p>\n
Yu sits across from me. She has a thick manila folder. Among the documents, her daughter’s kindergarten graduation certificate, glowing report cards.<\/p>\n
K YU: Every time I go to the ICE check in, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I was like, want to show them I’m a single mom. My daughter, she’s doing very good in here, you know?<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah.<\/p>\n
K YU: Look at this one. Like, she got, like, 4.0. I mean, she’s American citizen. I’m raising a good American citizen.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Though her daughter is an American citizen, Yu is not. She’s been caught up in the U.S. immigration system since she came more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
K YU: I was pregnant. I live in Hong Kong, so I’m a Hong Kong citizen.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: OK.<\/p>\n
K YU: A lot of this restriction in China that make me worry. And then, so, yeah.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: OK.<\/p>\n
K YU: That’s like, I wanted to, you know, take my daughter away from China.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: And so when you got here, what did you think? Was it like the TV, or was it very different?<\/p>\n
K YU: Hong Kong is the biggest city to be. At first, I think Phoenix is, like, a little outdated.<\/p>\n
(LAUGHTER)<\/p>\n
K YU: So I didn’t get used to it, you know?<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah. So you got here, it’s a little bit slower – a slower pace. Yeah.<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes. I love it.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, during this time here, what was your status here – your legal status? Is that something that you can talk about or you feel comfortable talking about?<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes, absolutely.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: OK. Yeah.<\/p>\n
K YU: So I came here illegally without paper because it got denied.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yu says she started applying for asylum in 2004 but was rejected. Since then, she’s been detained by ICE two times, most recently in 2025, under President Trump. But the first time it happened was under President Biden.<\/p>\n
K YU: 2024, and I came back from my workout, and three or four ICE agents came to my house and then picked me up and then sent me to detention center. So it was just very sudden. And then…<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah. Take your time. Yeah.<\/p>\n
K YU: (Crying) Just thinking about, you know, that we have a house. We have all the clothes. We have all the families here, and then they just want to send you right away. Just like that.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah.<\/p>\n
K YU: (Crying) The 20 years being United State (ph) does not mean anything.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah. That’s really hard.<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah. And so then what happened?<\/p>\n
K YU: They released me on February 1, 2025.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: And this happened again?<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes. It happened again May 28, 2025. So I went to the Phoenix ICE office May 28 to check in with them, and then they give me orders say, we’re going to lock you back to the detention center.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Did they give you a chance to get anything together, or was it just…<\/p>\n
K YU: So this first time they came to my house, and then I’m not able to get anything. They just, you know – and then the second time, I just, like, here we go, can I please give my purse with everything, give it to my daughter. So yeah, I didn’t able to pack anything.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Anything. Yeah. So what was detention like?<\/p>\n
K YU: I think it’s a little better than a jail (laughter).<\/p>\n
RASCOE: A little better than…<\/p>\n
K YU: So we don’t have to work in there. It – but, like, you welcome to work over there. They’re going to pay you a dollar a day.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: A dollar a day. OK.<\/p>\n
K YU: My daughter can come on family – able to come visit me once a week.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Kelly Yu’s daughter, Zita Yu, was just 10 when she started helping out at the restaurant. Now she’s 22 and behind the bar making a drink. While her mom was in detention, she had to pick up the slack.<\/p>\n
ZITA YU: I was still attending school at that time, so I did a lot of the marketing. I did a lot of the new menu making that we do – the seasonal menus that we do – and then a lot of just the background stuff, a lot of stuff with her through video calls or phone calls or text messages. And, I mean, at one point, I think she gave me, like, a 25 numbered list of things I needed to do while she was gone. And then, little by little, you chip away at it, and then she adds more. So of course, you know, we put so much in phone bills – like, so much money in phone bills, it was actually insane.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Under President Trump, Kelly Yu was locked up for 8 1\/2 months. She told me about what was going through her head during that time.<\/p>\n
K YU: Just talk to myself, just be patient, you know? Give myself to God, so God will lead me to where they – He want me to.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: But I hear a lot of people were supporting you while you were in there – local Democrats, but also local Republicans. Like, there were a lot of people who were advocating for you. Were you hearing about that?<\/p>\n
K YU: Yes. I don’t think I’m, like, that powerful myself (crying). I think it’s just they never meet me in person before that happened to me. I think they get a lot of call from people like my customers (crying). So that’s how they know about me.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Because you’ve made such an impact in the community and…<\/p>\n
K YU: Correct.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: …You’ve had – you’ve affected people’s lives, right? People – and people wanted to help you.<\/p>\n
K YU: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n
K YU: (Crying) Yeah.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: So then, you get out. How did that feel when you got out the second time, when you were finally released?<\/p>\n
K YU: It’s just unbelievable, you know? So, I mean, I am still worried they’re going to come to my house the third time (crying).<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Yeah.<\/p>\n
K YU: How to plan the future? I don’t know now. So only thing I can do is just living day by day. I change the menu, change the drink menu, putting the summer special menu, putting the – going to change fall special menu. I’m just living the moment. Enjoy every moment here with my daughter, with my family, with my lovely customers that everybody love me.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: You were detained under Biden. You were detained under Trump. This is, you know, bigger than any one administration because this is our immigration system in the U.S., right? What do you want lawmakers to know about immigration and voters to know about immigration?<\/p>\n
K YU: A lot of people have been living here over 10 years, 15, 20, 30, 40 years. The kids all have status. Grandkid have status. And now the older people are locked up in detention center (crying). My mom, she came me here five years ago. She’s living with me right now. She’s 70 years old (crying). I’m like, a life giving to her. I just want to be able to spend the future with my mom and then my daughter, all the family together, so I can just keep living here, you know? Just keep working hard. Yeah.<\/p>\n
(SOUNDBITE OF JEROEN BUURMAN’S “DISTANCE”)<\/p>\n
RASCOE: That’s Kelly Yu. She’s co-owner of Kawaii Sushi and Asian Cuisine. Thank you so much for joining us.<\/p>\n
K YU: You’re welcome.<\/p>\n
RASCOE: Our Arizona stories this week were produced by Andy Craig and edited by Jacob Fenston.<\/p>\n
(SOUNDBITE OF JEROEN BUURMAN’S “DISTANCE”)<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.<\/p>\n
\n Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR\u2019s programming is the audio record.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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