This story was first published at Colorado Newsline.
DENVER | A federal judge has ordered a bond hearing for Jeanette Vizguerra, the immigrant rights activist who has been detained in Aurora since March.
The hearing will need to happen before Christmas Eve, according to a Wednesday order by Judge Nina Wang of the U.S. District Court of Colorado.
During the proceeding, the government must present evidence that Vizguerra “presents a flight risk or danger to the community, such that continued detention is justified,” Wang’s order said.
Vizguerra, who gained national attention when she took sanctuary in a Denver church to prevent deportation during the first Trump administration, was arrested in March outside her workplace.
She immediately filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming that her arrest and detention is unconstitutional retaliation for her protected speech on immigration policy and the Trump administration. When she was arrested, an agent allegedly told her “We finally got you,” and a social media post from ICE announced the arrest of someone with a “high profile status.”
In September, her lawyers claimed her lengthy detention is illegal based on precedent. She has been held at the private GEO contract facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Wang wrote in her order that Vizguerra’s detention — which she determined was discretionary and not mandatory by the government because the 12-year old removal order in her case is so old — will end at some point, but it could be months or years from now because of her case. Vizguerra meets a majority of the standards courts are supposed to consider for an immigrant’s prolonged detention, including the length of time, likelihood of future detention, which party is delaying case progress and the conditions of the detention facility.
“Her continued detention requires a constitutionally adequate bond hearing before an immigration judge in order to comport with due process,” Wang wrote. “Moreover, the Court has already concluded that her detention presents exceptional circumstances with unique constitutional concerns, resembles criminal incarceration, and has become unreasonably prolonged.”
Wang also weighed in on the other pending issues in Vizguerra’s case. Though she declined to address the merits of her First Amendment claims until after the bond hearing, Wang appeared to agree that ICE targeted Vizguerra in her arrest and lengthy detention.
“Ms. Vizguerra-Ramirez’s substantial First Amendment allegations, taken to their logical conclusion, suggest that ICE did not act as an impartial decisionmaker in determining that she was subject to continued detention under (statute) and may have been motivated by a punitive purpose,” she wrote.
Vizguerra has lived in the United States since 1997, when she entered from Mexico without authorization. She received a reinstated removal order in 2013 but avoided deportation through sanctuary in churches and stays granted by the government until February 2024.
The government contends that the 2013 order is valid, but Vizguerra and her lawyers argue it is deficient because of a process error. Wang’s order declined to weigh in directly on Vizguerra’s claims regarding the validity of the removal order, ruling that they are the purview of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.