“It’s a special day for me because I will be able to celebrate Mother’s Day with my children and grandchildren,” Vizguerra said after emerging Friday morning from First Baptist Church at East 13th Avenue and Grant Streets.
Arturo Hernandez Garcia, who was , also was granted a stay of removal until March 2019. He will attend a daughter’s high school graduation on Monday.
“I’m very happy because two weeks ago I was arrested again by ICE and I didn’t know if I was going to be at her graduation or not,” he said.
Immigration attorney Laura Lichter said Vizguerra and Hernandez Garcia were two of 33 people who received deportation stays on Thursday. But others likely won’t be so lucky.
Hernandez Garcia and Vizguerra benefitted from intervention on their behalf by , U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, and U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Jefferson County, who filed private bills in the U.S. House and Senate this year, Vizguerra’s attorney Hans Meyer said. Federal policy allowed the two-year stays to allow the bills to proceed. But the White House changed the policy after the bills were filed, Lichter said.
Vizguerra left First Baptist Church in Denver Friday morning with about two dozen supporters singing a song in Spanish. Vizguerra and her children were wearing shirts that read “Keep Families Together.”
“They are the reason I continue to struggle,” Vizguerra said of her children, three of whom are U.S. citizens.
Vizguerra’s story has generated international headlines and prompted TIME magazine last month to name her one of the magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.
Thefor two decades, posted a message on its Facebook page late Thursday that said her stay of removal is good through March 15, 2019.
Hernandez Garcia, a Mexican man who in 2014 and 2015 and emerged from sanctuary after he was told he was no longer an immigration priority, was arrested on April 26 by ICE agents. He was while at work as a flooring contractor.
Vizguerra had initially taken sanctuary at the First Unitarian Society in February after her stay of removal expired and she chose not to attend a scheduled meeting with ICE, fearing immediate deportation under a new presidential administration that has made it clear it will take a hard-line on illegal immigration.
Vizguerra had since moved to First Baptist, several blocks west of First Unitarian.
Bennet said in an online message that he was “pleased to hear that Jeanette and Arturo have been granted temporary stays.”
“We have been working closely with them on their cases — coordinating with their lawyers, and we introduced private bills for each in the Senate,” he said.
Polis, who appeared with Vizguerra at a press conference in the church in March and sharply criticized a local ICE official, introduced private bill H.R. 752 on Vizguerra’s behalf in January.
Perlmutter had filed a private bill on behalf of Hernandez Garcia.
“After living in a church basement for months, ICE has finally decided to do what they should have done in the first place and given her a new stay of removal while Congress considers legislation specific to her case,” Polis said in an online message.
