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The 45-year-old Mexican national — who has lived in the U.S. since age 4 — was arrested by multiple masked immigration agents on North Stone Avenue around 10:15 a.m., after attending a hearing at Pima County Consolidated Justice Court, her family said.

The arrest raises questions about whether it violated a Pima County Board of Supervisors resolution limiting immigration enforcement on county property, and about how immigration agents knew the woman would be there.

The detained woman’s children asked the 51������ to only identify her as “Ana,” due to the anti-immigrant harassment they anticipate being directed at their mother on social media.

“We’re destroyed,” said Ana’s eldest daughter, 24, in a Tuesday phone call with the Star. She asked to remain anonymous as well, fearing public harassment.

“They don’t know my mom. My mom is not a criminal,” she said. “We’re all humans, regardless of somebody’s immigration status.”

Ana speaks English fluently and doesn’t remember living in Mexico, her children said. (Ana’s family provided her true full name and immigrant-identification number, known as an “alien number,” to the Star.)

“She’s been here over 40 years,” her daughter said. “She doesn’t know any life outside of the U.S.”

ICE did not immediately respond to the Star’s request for comment on Ana’s arrest, including how immigration agents knew she would be at the Justice Court building.

On Tuesday morning, Ana attended a hearing at Justice Court, 240 N. Stone Ave., anticipating paying a fine for a noise-ordinance violation issued by the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in June, her daughter said.

(Her daughter says she believes the complaint was dismissed Tuesday, but Justice Court records indicate the complaint is still open.)

As Ana was leaving the courthouse, agents exited a van parked on North Stone and called her name. When she turned, she was quickly surrounded by agents and put into handcuffs, her daughter said, recounting what her mom told her during a Tuesday phone call from the Tucson ICE field office, on South Country Club Road.

“My mom didn’t resist or anything. She was calm. She was just in shock,” her daughter said. “This person was literally going, as a good civilian, to go pay a citation … and they just take her. A bunch of masked men coming after one woman. It’s very intimidating.”

Ana has an 18-year-old son and two daughters, 19 and 24. All three live in Tucson and graduated from high school here.

Speaking from the Tucson ICE field office, Ana told her children Tuesday she may soon be transferred to the Florence Detention Center and expressed fear she could get lost in the detention system.

“She just told me she didn’t want me to stop looking for her,” her eldest daughter said. “That’s how scared she is.”

Her children are hoping Ana can be granted release on bond in immigration court, or that ICE could release her on parole, which ICE always has the discretion to do.

Ana’s children say she’s a warm, talkative person, who has long paid taxes in the U.S. and who does community service regularly with her church.

”She makes friends very fast. She can get a conversation out of anybody basically,” her daughter said.

When she turned 21 a few years ago, Ana’s eldest daughter became eligible to sponsor her mother for lawful permanent residency.

But Ana had been too scared to start the process, fearing she’d be detained after coming forward, especially since President Donald Trump took office in 2025 after a mass-deportation campaign, her daughter said.

ICE on county property?

It’s not clear if Ana was still on courthouse property at the time of her arrest.

But the arrest location raises the question of whether ICE agents acted in violation of a Pima County Board of Supervisors resolution limiting immigration enforcement on county property.

Her children also wonder how ICE agents would have known she was there.

“It doesn’t make sense. It’s like they knew about her,” her eldest daughter said. “What I want to know is, how do you guys come and take her and not even give her an explanation?”

The Pima County Board of Supervisor’s resolution, passed in February, says county employees can’t give consent for federal officials to use county property for the purposes of immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant, signed by a judge.

County owned and controlled property cannot “be used as a staging area, processing location, or operation base for civil immigration enforcement,” it says. County employees must not cooperate with immigration enforcement except when “required by law.”

ICE arrests at courthouses, and other “sensitive locations,” have long been criticized by advocates for dissuading people from attending their hearings and for sowing fear and distrust in communities.

In Trump’s second term, ICE rescinded earlier guidance advising against detaining immigrants at sensitive locations, such as courthouses, churches and schools.

In June, a federal district court judge blocked ICE from continuing a policy that paved the way for mass arrests at immigration courthouses, Courthouse News Service . Arrests at other types of courthouses appear to be ongoing.

Earlier Tuesday, rumor spread that ICE had detained a woman outside of Tucson City Court, instead of Pima County Justice Court. The Tucson City Council also passed an ordinance this year barring civil immigration enforcement on city-owned property.

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, a Democrat, issued a statement on the arrest Tuesday, saying she was “working closely with Tucson Police Department Chief Monica Prieto and City leadership to verify information as it becomes available.”

“This is yet another attack by the Trump administration to focus their cruel and inhumane policies on working people — NOT violent criminals. They are spreading fear and chaos, NOT keeping us safe,” Romero’s statement said.