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WASHINGTON – Federal immigration officials are trying to expel Arizona women who have lived in the United States for nearly 30 years. Her lawyers are calling the first test of federal law that long-standing immigrants cannot be ruled out until they have the opportunity to file a lawsuit before a judge.
Attorneys for Mirta Amarilis Co Tupul filed a lawsuit in the US District Court in Arizona on Saturday night, calling for an emergency halt to Co Tupul’s imminent deportation to Guatemala while the lawsuit unfolds in court.
“This administration alone will go this far,” said Chris Godshall-Bennet, the lead lawyer at Co Tupul.
Godshall-Bennet said the government’s move against Co Tupul is the latest in many illegal activities attempted by the Trump administration to eliminate as many immigrants as possible. Her defender said if Co Tupul is allowed to go on deportation, it could have a major impact on millions of other migrants who have lived in the United States for many years and are at risk of deportation.
The lawsuit was filed against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Christie Noem. General Pam Bondy, Deputy Immigration and Customs Executive Director Todd Lyons and Phoenix Ice Field Office Director John Cantu.
In a statement, DHS Deputy Chief Tricia McLaughlin said Co Tupul “has not asserted or provided documents to ICE that he had lived in the US for more than two years, let alone 30 years.”
“If she can provide documents to LCE law enforcement agencies that she has lived in the US for more than two years, ICE of course follows the law and places her in the usual removal process,” McLaughlin said.
Co Tupul’s lawyers said they were told they provided extensive evidence of her longtime residence and would remain in a quick removal procedure anyway.
Federal law since 1996 allows the government to place immigrants in rapid removal procedures if they lived in the United States within two years. The Trump administration appears to be using the law beyond its limits.
“They grab people who have been here for decades and start abandoning them without immigration court hearing,” said Eric Lee, the lawyer for Kotupur.
Co Tupul’s lawyers do not deny that she lacks legal status. The question is how much legitimate process should she receive?
Co Tupul (38 years old) entered the United States around 1996. She is a single mother of three US citizens, ages 8, 16 and 18, and lives in Phoenix.
She was driving to work at A Laundromat on July 22 when a police officer in a green uniform (believed to be a US customs and border security agent) pulled her over and immediately asked about her immigrant status. The agent held her when Co Tupul refused to answer. He called Ice and carried her to Eloi Detention Center about 65 miles southeast of Phoenix.
Three days later, her lawyer Mindy Butler-Christensen called the deportation officer at Co Tupul. He explained that the client will be placed in a rapid removal procedure and will be removed within 1-3 weeks.
“I asked the deportation officer to share with me why she was placed in a quick removal,” Butler Christensen wrote in a declaration of oath. “He told me this was a “new policy” implemented by immigrants who had just made ‘first contact with the ice’. ”
He refused to provide policy documents, she said.
Under regular deportation lawsuits, immigrants have the right to sue their case before an immigration judge, along with the right to appeal. Because of the important court backlog, the process could be eliminating for years.
Under rapid removal, the immigration court process will be bypassed and immigrants cannot appeal, but they are entitled to screenings in asylum.
Initially, a fast process was applied only to immigrants who arrived at ports of entry, such as airports. By the mid-2000s, it had spread to people who had entered illegally at sea and in the land, and within two weeks of their arrival they were caught by border agents.
The use of rapid removal again expanded in June 2020 to what existed in the US in less than two years amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
In January, the Trump administration announced that the government would seek prompt deportation for those arrested not only within 100 miles of the border but also anywhere in the United States.
In the Federal Register, in a notice announcing the changes, then, afterwards, Homeland Security Secretary Benjamin Huffman wrote, “We will restore the scope of rapid removal to the maximum extent approved by Congress.”
“They first expanded their geographical realm, but now they seem to be trying for two years,” Godshall-Bennet said.
The Co Tupul’s brothers assembled a large collection of documents that proved that she has lived in the United States for decades, that she has no criminal history and that she is a great member of her community, including 16 affidavits signed with close friends and family dating back to July 1996.
According to an email reviewed by The Times, Butler-Christensen sent the evidence to staff at the Eloy Detention Center and told Cantu, the ICE Regional Field Office Director that Co Tupul should be placed in the usual deportation process.
The response was made on July 29 by an e-mail from a deportation officer who said, “The case will be reviewed and she will remain under a prompt deletion procedure.”
On the next day’s call, the superintendent’s detention and deportation officer asked Butler Christensen why she was so insisting that Co Tupul was placed in a regular lawsuit, “What’s the difference?” According to her declaration.
“He said during his arrest he refused to disclose to the officers how much she lived here,” Butler Christensen wrote.
She added: [ICE] About how long she lived in Arizona. ”
The officers were not upset.
Another ICE official confirmed that the officer had proposed. CoTupul confirmed that she was placed in a rapid removal procedure as she refused to share immigrant status with the officer she arrested.
“In the management of your client, she has invoked the right not to make a statement,” the official wrote in an email to Butler Christensen. “Based on this, the officers treated her as a quick removal.”
For the record:
8:29 PM August 4, 2025, an earlier version of this article falsely referred to Ricardo Diaz as Ricardo Luis.
Co Tupul’s eldest son, Ricardo Diaz, said his mother prepared him for the possibility that she would be taken into custody. She watched the news frequently and feared that reported ice attacks would eventually reach her gateway.
On a short call from the detention center, Diaz said he had told him to look for his siblings and focus on his school work as a freshman at university.
Diaz works at Walmart and splits the bill with his mother. Without her help, he said he immediately felt the pressure to keep their family floating. Diaz described Co Tupul as a dedicated and hardworking woman who raised her children to become good citizens who respect the law.
He said it was unfair that immigration officers do not respect the law itself.
“I don’t think she deserves this,” he said. “No one will do it.”
On Monday, Co Tupul’s youngest son began his first day of his new school year. For the first time, Diaz dropped them off in place of her mother.
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