“I’m still under attack:” Karla Toledo, relief and fear after case dismissed

Karla Toledo — the DACA recipient detained by masked immigration agents at her own home in mid-May — celebrated the dismissal of her case by a judge in Tucson. The 31-year-old Latina immigrant expressed both relief and caution.

About 30 people gathered Wednesday outside the Tucson Immigration Court building for what was expected to be Karla’s first hearing after her arrest and confinement at Eloy Detention Center. Family and community members carried signs with Karla’s image that read: “Stand with Karla. Protect Dreamers.”

“Dreamers” is a common name for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Karla’s mother, Veronica Ortiz, said she brought her daughter to the U.S. when she was 1 year old.

Nationally, there are nearly 506,000 DACA holders, according to September 2025 ICE data. Nearly 19,000 of these immigrants are from Arizona. Many are watching court cases like Karla’s, worried if they’re next.

On Wednesday, some supporters wore pink to symbolize solidarity with immigrant communities affected by the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies. Standing near her attorney, Karla wore a bright fuchsia blazer and sparkling silver shoes.

But the hearing never took place.

“What I hold here is an order from the immigration judge, signed by Judge Irene Feldman, that says that Karla Toledo’s removal proceedings have been dismissed,” said her attorney, Mo Goldman.

Goldman also emphasized that the case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning officials can detain her again, he said.

Goldman explained that on Monday he had filed a motion asking the court to dismiss Karla’s case and presented his legal arguments. He said that he later learned that officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would file — as it ultimately did — a motion seeking the same outcome.

Karla and her attorney expressed concern about the pending renewal of her Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, known as DACA, which expires this July.

“Yes, they closed this court case, but my DACA is still being processed,” Karla said in Spanish. “I check it every day, and nothing has happened. So, I’m still under attack either way — anything can happen.”

Karla was arrested at her home on May 18 by ICE agents. She said agents did not show her a judicial warrant. At the time of her arrest, she was protected under DACA, which she has maintained with regular renewals since 2012.

Two days after her arrest — which was captured by her home surveillance cameras — Monica Yoas, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, commonly known as DHS, which oversees ICE, told media outlets in a statement that Karla was arrested during an immigration enforcement operation targeting another individual, who was not identified. Yoas said Karla assaulted an agent during the operation and claimed she illegally reentered the country in 2024.

Officials did not respond to Arizona Luminaria’s question about whether officers had a warrant to enter Karla’s home.

Goldman told reporters at the time that Karla had a preapproved Advance Parole authorization that allowed her to leave and legally return to the United States. He also said there’s “surveillance footage that shows Ms. Toledo did not assault a DHS officer.”

Karla said in an interview with Somos Tucson on May 28 that neither she nor her attorney had been informed of any charges filed against her for assaulting a law enforcement officer.

“If we look at the timeline of events: they arrest her, they detain her, and then they release her. When has ICE done that recently? They have not been doing that at all,” Goldman said Wednesday outside the courthouse. “That was an admission of guilt on their part.”

Goldman maintains that his client, who was brought to the U.S. as a toddler by her mother from Ciudad Obregón, Sonora, has lived 97 percent of her life in the country.

“She has been the victim of circumstance her entire life,” said the attorney, wearing a pink hat with black lettering that read: “Immigrants Are America.”

- YouTube www.youtube.com

They Are De-Legalizing People: Karla’s attorney

Goldman said Karla is one of many U.S. immigrants who deserve better.

“She is everything that is right about this country. She’s somebody that we need in this country. And she represents not only a person, an individual, but tens of thousands of other Dreamers and people of DACA who are currently facing de-legalization.”

“I want you to remember that term. ‘De-legalization’ is what is happening right now by this administration,” Goldman told reporters.

Nationally, he said, immigration authorities are detaining people who have some form of legal protection, such as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or DACA, and systematically stripping them of their status and placing them into deportation proceedings.

“And that is exactly what they’re trying to do to her,” he added, pointing to Karla.

Goldman argues that ICE is following this pattern in order to meet arrest and detention quotas imposed by the government.

Last May, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told Fox News that the Trump administration was aiming for “a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day.”

“While I’m very happy for Karla and her family, ICE must be held accountable,” said Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva in a Wednesday statement on social media following the dismissal of Toledo’s case. “The Trump administration is actively targeting people like her, tearing families apart and terrorizing our communities.”

Grijalva stressed how the U.S. should be standing with “Dreamers” and providing them pathways to citizenship.

Karla repeatedly expressed concern that many other DACA recipients across the country are going through — or have gone through — her same experience. She pointed to official statistics showing that between January and September 2025, at least 260 DACA recipients were detained in the United States and at least 86 were deported.“We are under attack,” she said.

Earlier this year, Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin in a Senate hearing grilled former DHS Security Kristi Noem about the agency last year arresting “261 DACA holders and deported 86 of them. We learned about a DACA recipient who’d lived in this country for decades, was arrested by ICE at her green card appointment. In tears, she hugged her daughter goodbye. She was deported to México within 24 hours. Madam Secretary, why have you deported dozens of DACA holders who had to comply with a criminal background check to be eligible for DACA?”

Noem responded, “We follow all laws as applicable to the Department of Homeland Security and how we handle detainment and deportations.”

DHS had previously stated that the DACA recipients had criminal histories.

Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly had joined Durbin and fellow California Democrat Sen. Alex Padilla to press for more information on the charges in a February 2026 letter.

“News of DACA recipients being arrested and deported is deeply troubling. These arrests disrupt families, harm communities, and inflict unnecessary social, emotional, and economic costs. And it is a waste of taxpayer dollars,” the senators said. “Secretary Noem’s response to our letter claims that 241 of the 261 DACA recipients arrested had ‘criminal histories,’ without providing any further details.”

Two days after the Senate hearing, Trump fired Noem.

On Wednesday, Karla warned other DACA recipients: “Get prepared. Gather all your documents and save them in a drive so you’re prepared. I’ve heard a saying, ‘Prepare for the worst but hope for the best.’ That’s what we have to do — prepare ourselves and know our rights.”

They Fear the Dismissal May Be a Strategy

The dismissal of Karla’s case — requested by both her attorney and ICE — may prove to be only temporary relief, Goldman said.

“I worry that it could be a big switch. They terminate a case today, make us feel the false sense of security, and then maybe let her DACA lapse,” Goldman said. “Then they say, ‘OK, now we are going to come get you again,’” If that happened, he believes community outreach would be 10 times greater.

The federal DACA program took effect in 2012 through an executive action under former President Barack Obama. It was designed to allow undocumented immigrants who met certain requirements — including entering the country as children before 2007 and having no criminal record — to be considered lawfully present in the United States and eligible to obtain a Social Security number, a driver’s license and a work permit. DACA is a temporary benefit that must be renewed every two years.

In January 2025, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, must continue processing DACA renewal applications and related employment authorization requests, except for in Texas where the court ruled work permits unlawful and sent the order to a lower court for implementation.

The agency was also required to accept new applications, although it would not process them for the time being. In recent months, however, DACA recipients across the country have reported that USCIS is taking unusually long to process renewal requests.

“They have thousands, tens of thousands of applications for new DACAs that they’re not processing,” Goldman said. “They are taking people’s money to the tune of about $500 per application and not doing anything about it. They’re just sitting on these applications. It’s a shame.”

The attorney said he has seen very few DACA renewals approved in recent months, which aligns with what other immigration attorneys have told him.

Lillian Vázquez, an immigration document preparer and close friend of Karla’s family, said in Spanish that out of approximately 80 renewal applications processed through her office during the last three months, only one has been approved. The rest remain pending.

Goldman’s recommendations for DACA recipients include requesting expedited processing through the USCIS portal, and sending letters to the agency. This could include one from an employer, if applicable, explaining the economic hardship the delay is causing both the company and the employee and submitting a personal letter explaining why the failure to renew DACA would create financial hardship.

He also suggested contacting elected representatives of Congress to request assistance. The final and most extreme option, he said, would be litigation.

“We’re talking about possible class actions or some sort of lawsuits that might benefit a lot of people.”

We Need to Do All We Can: Military Veteran

Among the dozens of people who attended Karla’s appearance with her attorney at the courthouse were family members, friends, elected officials and people who had never met her, including Shelly Burgoyne.

“We need to do all we can to push this administration and push our Congress to enact laws that make our immigration policy sane and empathetic and humane,” said Burgoyne, a lifelong Tucson resident and military combat veteran. Burgoyne is part of VetsForward, or VetsFWD, a grassroots organization that works with deported veterans and advocates for people unlawfully taken from the U.S.

“We’re also horrified by the way that ICE treats these people,” she said. Burgoyne served for two tours in Iraq, and considers ICE agents’ tactics to be untrained and unprofessional.

“It’s just enraging, and we’re out here for those reasons to protect the people like Karla that are being taken from their homes violently and illegally, without a warrant, and to stand against the way that ICE is doing this to people,” she said.

Goldman recalled that DACA “was nothing more than a temporary fix,” and said that Congress has failed in its responsibility to pass a law for “Dreamers,” or any other form of immigration reform, that protects people like Karla and other undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

“Since 1790, our government has continued to pass laws designed to exclude certain people and prevent them from achieving that so-called and unattainable American Dream,” Goldman said.

“This is the human rights, civil rights issue right now of our lifetime in this country,” he said. “There’s no other marginalized population that’s facing this sort of oppression.”

Karla said that while she waits for her DACA renewal, she will focus on supporting her community in any way possible. Through her translation work for organizations such as Scholarships A-Z, Derechos Humanos and the Sunnyside Foundation, or by helping other DACA recipients through their renewal processes.

Karla is known for sharing information online about biking, fashion and body positivity, as well as for organizing support for low-income families and struggling communities during COVID-19.

She stressed that the significance of her case does not lie in her social media following, but rather in what happened to her and in the support she received from her community.

She called on both the media and the public to help bring attention to other immigration cases.

“Please don’t just tell my story,” Karla said. “There are many stories in Eloy, in other detention centers. Please reach out to them as well, because they deserve a voice too.”

“I’m still under attack:” Karla Toledo, relief and fear after case dismissed was first published by Arizona Luminaria and was republished with permission.

Summer Williams is a recent graduate of the University of Arizona School of Journalism. She focuses on visual storytelling, photography, and video.

Liliana López Ruelas is a bicultural journalist and the founder of Somos Tucson.