DENVER | Mexican immigrant Jeanette Vizguerra, who gained national prominence after she took refuge in churches in Colorado to avoid deportation during the first Trump administration, is being detained at an Aurora ICE detention facility, immigration advocates and her lawyers said Tuesday.
Vizguerra, a mother of four, was arrested at a Denver-area Target store where she worked on Monday, said Jordan Garcia of the American Friends Service Committee, who has been in contact with Vizguerra’s lawyer and family.
Vizguerra has been trying to gain a visa given to crime victims that allows them to remain in the United States since she left sanctuary in churches in 2020, Garcia said.
CLICK HERE FOR A COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA INTERVIEW WITH VIZGUERRA
The arrest drew a wide range of sharp rebukes from prominent local and national government officials and immigration activists.
“Let’s be clear about what happened today. This is not immigration enforcement intended to keep our country safe,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said in a statement. “This is Putin-style persecution of political dissidents. Jeanette Vizguerra is a mother of U.S. citizens. She works at Target. She’s the founder of a local non-profit. This is not about safety. This is about political theater and political retribution.”
Johnston , who defended Denver’s so-called sanctuary city policies in Congress earlier this month, called on people to demand that ICE release Vizguerra and give her due process rights.
“This doesn’t make this country safer. It makes this country lawless, which is the most unsafe thing any president can do.” he said.
News of Vizguerra’s detention prompted a protest outside the Aurora ICE detention center, where her family said she is being held. Buses left the facility in the morning, raising fears that she would be deported, but her family said Vizguerra was still there later in the day.
“We hope ICE will work with her attorney to release her immediately,” the family said in a statement included in an update from the American Friends Service Committee.
El Comercio de Colorado spoke with lawyers for Vizguerra, who said they have filed for habeas corpus, arguing for her release amid what they deem is a wrongful arrest.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE HABEAS CORPUS FILING.
Vizguerra’s lawyers said ICE is attempting to remove her based on an order that was never valid. Petitions challenging her detention have been filed in both Denver’s federal court and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“If ICE proceeds with trying to remove her without legal authority, it sends a chilling message about the agency’s disregard for due process and the rule of law,” one of the attorneys, Laura Lichter, said in a statement.
Vizguerra, who came to Colorado in 1997 from Mexico City, has been fighting deportation since 2009 after she was pulled over in Arapahoe County and found to have fraudulent Social Security card with her own name and birth date but someone else’s actual number, according to a 2019 lawsuit she brought against ICE. Vizguerra did not know the number belonged to someone else at the time, it said.
The Colorado Sun reports that a GoFundMe was created by Vizguerra’s family .
“My mom has fought relentlessly for her community and it is time for all of us to now come together and show all the support for her like she has done to us,” one of her daughters wrote on the GoFundMe.
The Sun reported that she was tabbed one of TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People, ” because she “has fought tirelessly for immigrant rights, even seeking sanctuary in a Denver church to keep her family together.”
COLORADO COMMENT
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado: “Jeanette Vizguerra is a mother and pillar in her community. I am deeply concerned about ICE’s actions to detain her without any due process, like a deportation order. ICE should ensure Jeanette has legal counsel and immediately release her.”
U.S. Rep Jason Crow, D-Aurora: “I am deeply troubled by the Trump administration’s actions detaining Jeanette Vizguerra. Targeting grandmothers and parents of American children who have called our community home for decades is wrong and won’t make Colorado more safe.”
Democratic Colorado Attorney Gengeral Phil Weiser: “Jeanette Vizguerra has lived in Colorado for 30 years and has kids and grandkids here. Detaining a grandma does not appear to be about public safety. I continue to have serious concerns about violations of due process and will be monitoring the situation.”
Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colorado: “There are serious concerns about ICE’s actions to detain Jeanette Vizguerra. Targeting a mother who has been an active part of our Colorado community for nearly three decades will not fix our broken immigration system or secure our border.”
Democratic Gov. Jared Polis: “I have met with and know Jeanette Vizguerra. Jeanette is a mother and grandmother, has spent decades in our country, helping the community, has a job, has no history of violence, is not a threat to the community, and above all else, deserves due process pursuant to the law. I continue to urge President Trump and ICE to focus their actions on violent offenders and be more transparent with states they are operating in, including being transparent about the cost and impact of detentions, raids, and the cost to taxpayers. The state has not seen any transparent accounting of ICE operations in our state and has not been notified beyond press reports of the apprehension of Ms. Vizguerra.”
Vizguerra filed a lawsuit, which she later dropped, alleging that ICE did not have a valid order to deport her after she pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count in that case because it says she voided it by agreeing to self-deport to Mexico. ICE wrongly tried to revive that order after Vizguerra was arrested for re-entering the United States later, the lawsuit said.
She began living in churches in 2017 to avoid being deported under the first Trump administration after a hold on her deportation was not renewed. She was given a two-year stay of deportation after two members of Colorado’s congressional delegation, Sen. Michael Bennet and then-Rep. Jared Polis, who is now Colorado’s governor, introduced so-called private bills to give her a path to become a permanent resident. Such delays have sometimes been extended for years as lawmakers reintroduce the measures aimed at helping individual immigrants, but few of the measures ever become law.
After that stay was not renewed in 2019, Vizguerra again entered church sanctuary but then left in 2020, according to a timeline provided by the American Friends Service Committee.
The Sentinel never tells the whole story. In keeping with its goal to mislead the public, the Leftist Sentinel never truthfully points out that the woman who has been arrested is an ILLEGAL ALIEN. This is an important fact. The Sentinel seeks to deceive readers into believing the woman was taken into custody for no reason at all. She was the same woman who hid in a church for 3 years and had an active deportation order. The fact that despite having an active deportation order in force, she felt bold enough to show up in front of an ICE facility demonstrates how little respect for our laws ILLEGAL ALIENS have.
This reporting continues to suck.
“Vizguerra has been trying to gain a visa given to crime victims that allows them to remain in the United States since she left sanctuary in churches in 2020, Garcia said.” Is this related to the prior mention of her husband being threatened and that’s why they left Mexico in 1997?
Why is that taking so long (between 4 & 27 years)
“Vizguerra, who came to Colorado in 1997 from Mexico City, has been fighting deportation since 2009 after she was pulled over in Arapahoe County and found to have fraudulent Social Security card with her own name and birth date but someone else’s actual number, according to a 2019 lawsuit she brought against ICE. Vizguerra did not know the number belonged to someone else at the time, it said.”
Is she stupid or not? If she didn’t apply for a Social Security card through Social Security, then she must have known she was acquiring a fraudulent document. That’s bad for her, and also bad for the person whose number she was/is? using.
“ Sen. Michael Bennet and then-Rep. Jared Polis, who is now Colorado’s governor, introduced so-called private bills to give her a path to become a permanent resident. Such delays have sometimes been extended for years as lawmakers reintroduce the measures aimed at helping individual immigrants, but few of the measures ever become law.” That seems to have been a useless effort. And why permanent residency rather than citizenship?
From the linked interview, “And how did we survive? By educating ourselves, organizing, knowing our rights, and above all, fighting. Governments cannot rule our lives.” To provide rules for our lives is exactly why governments exist. Creating order out of chaos. You know who else likes chaos? trump. You know who else doesn’t like following the law? trump.
Still waiting to learn why she hasn’t become a US citizen.
And also, the comments I wrote had spacing and paragraphs. This third-rate website got rid of all that, so my comments look like one long-winded rant. Shame on you for not providing a better website.
We didn’t need another story to tell us what Democrats would think about this apprehension. They brought all these illegals here and will fight for all of them to stay. They are wrong about whether this arrest makes our country safer. All apprehensions and deportations make our country safer by discouraging future illegal immigration.
So according to Colorado politicians identity theft , driving without a license and insurance is acceptable as long as you claim to have been a victim in another country. Final removal was issued over a decade ago this criminal needs to go already !
Can we please stop calling people in the country illegally “immigrants”?
This is a huge insult and slap in the face to everyone who followed the process for legal immigration, and intentional obfuscation of they key factor – this person is in the country illegally, and also committed identity fraud.
The fact the anyone is trying to defend this individual, let alone keep them in this country, is a disgusting slap in the face to the actual immigrants in this country who are following the right process and waiting for their place in line to live here. Absolutely twisted and gross that this is the angle journalists are taking.
I would like to know who’s Social Security number she has been using and has it been the same one for all 28 years? She founded a local non-profit that remains unnamed and I have to wonder if that’s because she earned money from the non-profit too. Has she ever filed taxes, if so how?
So, Jeanette Vizguerra, felt it’s important to use someone’s identity against the Social Security system as how trustworthy it would make in her contribution to becoming a strong US citizen – that’s fairly convincing. Then she somehow starts some nameless Non-Profit operation allowing for further IRS tax-free deferred assets, as her likely crafting into the woodwork as a beneficiary position, another curiously deceptive set-up? She’s unquestionably well motivated in her thinking throughout this ordeal under the auspicious and helping-hand of Denver Mayor Johnson. He says, “Let’s be clear about what happened today” he wants to be clear does he? — Really? Just the opposite in his testimony and what he was saying under oath in the DC hearing on 3/5. Anybody remember? He did everything he could to not be – “lets be clear” – talk about twisting his answers to Congress. More than once, he wouldn’t answer the simplest straight forward question “are you a sanctuary city?” Instead, it was “No we are a welcoming city” It’s politicos like Johnson, and the other five listed above Colo. politicians that continue to be deceptive and circumvent the system of ICE. That illusory conduct by city leaders continues to work against the judge’s deportation orders. So why should this woman feel much exposure to being deported? This is perfect, it’s what the policy of a sanctuary city boils down to. It’s all of the years of the strategy of non-accountability focused on non-ICE cooperation policies that Denver and the state lawmakers have created. And now it’s followed by the associated problems and what it looks like, close up.