Update at 12:41 p.m. March 19: ICE and Jeanette Vizguerra’s attorneys argue over legalities after Colorado immigration activistap arrest
Jeanette Vizguerra, the Colorado immigration activist who took sanctuary in Denver churches to avoid deportation during the first Trump administration, was detained this week by federal immigration authorities and is being held in Aurora, her attorney said Tuesday.
The detention of Vizguerra, a 53-year-old mother of four who has lived in the United States for nearly 30 years, sparked outrage Tuesday among elected officials, church leaders, advocacy groups and Denverites, who called on the federal government to release her.
“Letap be clear what happened today,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said. “This is not immigration enforcement intended to keep our country safe. 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 nonprofit.”
Officials with in Denver on Wednesday confirmed Vizguerra was arrested this week and will remain in ICE custody “pending removal from the United States.”
The agency said it had a final deportation order issued by a federal immigration judge. Vizguerra’s latest one-year stay of deportation expired in February 2024, ICE said.
Vizguerra was apprehended by ICE agents at her workplace Monday and placed at the agency’s Aurora detention facility, which is run by private contractor , according to the , which is working with her family and attorneys.
The committee, a Quaker social justice group, said in a news release that Vizguerra’s attorneys “have raised serious legal errors and concern her due process rights are being violated.”
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.
“Itap clear to us now that the government of our country is targeting our mom in violation of her rights and due process, for her bravery and courage, for her leadership and skill, for her speech,” Vizguerra’s family said in a statement released by the committee. “She taught us never to be silent in the face of injustice and we will keep fighting for our mom.”
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 two Denver churches in 2020, said Jordan Garcia of the American Friends Service Committee.
One of Vizguerra’s children, Luna Baez, wrote in a that Vizguerra was detained outside of her job at a local Target store “by a few ICE officers while they laughed in her face.”
Baez was among more than 100 people who gathered outside the ICE detention facility Tuesday night in the wind, rain and snow to protest Vizguerra’s arrest.
The group briefly clashed with Aurora Police Department officers who used dozens of patrol vehicles to block North Oakland Street in front of the facility. One police officer used a speaker to order protesters to move onto the sidewalk as other officers stood in the street, batons in hand.
The group later marched to the south side of the ICE complex, where organizers say Vizguerra is being held.
This is the third time Vizguerra has been detained by immigration officials, and it never gets any easier, Baez said.
“I need my mom back,” Baez told the crowd, holding back tears. “I need her to come home.”
Baez was able to call Vizguerra during the protest and put the phone next to a microphone, translating as Vizguerra spoke to protesters in Spanish.
Vizguerra was “very close” to being deported Tuesday but was able to remain in Colorado because of community pressure and her lawyers fighting tooth and nail, she told the crowd.
“She will fight until the end to stay here,” Baez said. “Even locked up, she will continue to fight.”
In a statement Tuesday, Gov. Jared Polis urged ICE “to focus their actions on violent offenders.”
“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,” he said.
Last week, when pressed about reports of ICE detaining protesters and longtime residents, Polis told reporters he still supported the agency’s efforts in Colorado, even as he acknowledged he didn’t fully know what its officers were doing.
“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,” Polis noted in his statement Tuesday.
Denver City Councilwoman Jamie Torres called the activist’s apprehension “a grave injustice.”
“We are seeing firsthand further proof that this federal administration is absolutely not focused on those who cause harm or who are dangerous in our community,” she said. “We should all be furious right now.”
“We just can’t let this go unnoticed”
Observers who gathered outside the detention facility Tuesday morning reported seeing a group of men and women being loaded onto buses and driven away. The American Friends Service Committee initially said it believed Vizguerra was on one of those buses, but her family later received a call from the activist confirming she was still inside the Aurora facility.
By 10:30 a.m., a group of about 20 people had gathered outside the ICE facility to protest Vizguerra’s detention, holding up yellow signs that read “Free Jeanette.”
Julie Meyers, 68, decided to participate because she knows Vizguerra and her kids through their church congregation.
“We just can’t let this go unnoticed from the greater community,” she said.
Arnie Carter, 67, added that the community has reacted to Vizguerra’s detention in a “huge” way, with Instagram and Facebook blowing up with the news.
On the sidewalk along East 30th Avenue, Rosie Bettam, 38, waved a homemade sign that declared she was a mom supporting another mom.
The Northglenn resident heard word of the detention Tuesday morning when she was readying her child for kindergarten. After Bettam dropped her daughter off at school, she drew a sign and headed to the Aurora facility.
Bettam wants to see Vizguerra released. As for whether the matter will cause a ripple effect that impacts broader immigration issues, she said, “There’s hope for a lot of things always, but all you can do is put your boots on the ground and do something.”
Raquel Lane-Arellano, communications manager at the , demanded “an end to ICE’s unjust targeting of immigrant leaders” in a Tuesday statement.
Rudy Gonzales, president and chairman of Denver-based , referred to Vizguerra as “one of this country’s most important voices regarding humane, just immigration reform and a dynamic leader who’s dedicated her life to the most vulnerable in our communities, not only here in Colorado, but across this nation.”
Fighting deportation, seeking sanctuary in churches
Vizguerra has lived in the United States for nearly 30 years after immigrating to Colorado from Mexico with her eldest daughter and husband in 1997.
She was pulled over in 2009 for driving with an expired inspection sticker. Vizguerra refused to answer when the police officer asked if she was in the country legally and was arrested, kickstarting a years-long fight to avoid deportation and stay in the U.S.
Police searched Vizguerra’s bag and said they found a fake Social Security number. She was charged with misdemeanor identity theft and criminal possession of a forged instrument, later pleading guilty to one misdemeanor count.
She served 21 days in jail and was placed in removal proceedings upon her release, but she sued ICE to block her deportation.
The lawsuit, which she later dropped, alleged 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.
In 2017, both the and the church let Vizguerra take sanctuary in their buildings after the denial of her stay of deportation. On Tuesday morning, First Baptist ministerial associate Kurt Kaufman said his office was buzzing with activity as he fielded phone calls and sent emails.
Vizguerra’s detention raises concerns for not only her wellbeing, but also that of the community, Kaufman said. He depicted himself as both afraid and enraged at the news.
“This only reinforces and solidifies the need for this advocacy and for our voice in this because itap real — this is happening,” he said.
ICE granted Vizguerra a stay of deportation until 2019. But that year, she was denied a U visa — a type of visa that allows undocumented immigrants to live legally in the U.S.
The immigrant rights activist said the denial cited 11 factors, including having a criminal history, her comments to the New York Times about immigrant rights, a period when she left the U.S. to visit her dying mother in Mexico and letting her passport expire in 2017 while she was in sanctuary.
So Vizguerra sheltered once more at the First Unitarian Society’s church. Two years later, she was able to leave that house of worship because of a temporary deportation block issued under former President Joe Biden.
Rev. Mike Morran of the First Unitarian Society of Denver was among the throng at the ICE facility on Tuesday.
“We’re heartbroken for Jeanette,” he said. “We’re heartbroken for her family, for her children, who, of course, have been through untold amounts of stress over the years from the threats of deportation.”
He said he’s also worried about the Trump administration’s disregard of due process, precedent and more.
“The fact is we don’t trust them,” Morran said. “They will ignore the kinds of processes that have been guaranteed to immigrants in the past in terms of notification, in terms of having actual deportation orders.”
“None of those things apparently matter anymore,” he added.
Denver Post reporter Seth Klamann and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Updated 10 a.m. March 19, 2025: This story has been updated with confirmation from ICE that it has arrested Jeanette Vizguerra.
