Democrats are racing to criticize federal immigration authorities’ arrest of a prominent illegal migrant activist, framing her as a simple grandmother who isn’t receiving due process. Yet, she has a criminal history dating back more than 15 years and has been violating immigration laws for even longer, authorities say.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Jeanette Vizguerra, a 53-year-old Mexican national, in the Denver area on Monday, the agency confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The arrest was just the latest enforcement action against Vizguerra, a convicted criminal alien who has been living unlawfully in the U.S. for decades and taken great lengths to avoid ICE agents.
Immediately following news of her arrest, the mayor of Denver went so far as to claim the move was reminiscent of political persecution under Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
“Jeanette Vizguerra is a mom of American citizens, a Target employee, a nonprofit leader and an immigration reform advocate with no violent criminal history,” Mayor Mike Johnston said Tuesday. “Her detainment is not about safety. This is Putin-style persecution of political dissidents.”
Other Democrats lined up to question whether the longtime illegal migrant received “due process.”
“Jeanette Vizguerra is a mother and pillar in her community,” Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said Tuesday. “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.”
“Detaining a grandma does not appear to be about public safety,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said Tuesday. “I continue to have serious concerns about violations of due process and will be monitoring the situation.”
Vizguerra has had countless run-ins with local and federal authorities since she first unlawfully entered the United States roughly thirty years ago, according to ICE. Cementing herself as a prominent anti-ICE activist over the years, she famously took refuge in a Denver-area church in 2017 in order to avoid deportation during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The illegal migrant activist went on to found anti-ICE groups such as Abolish ICE Denver and the Dreamer’s Mothers in Action-Colorado and volunteered for the Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition, according to NBC News.
For her illegal immigration activism, she was named one of Time Magazine’s most influential people in 2017. The Time profile failed to mention her convictions of local crimes and unlawful entry into the U.S.
ICE has since hit back hard against the suggestion that Vizguerra is not receiving “due process.”
“Jeanette Vizguerra is a convicted criminal alien from Mexico who has a final order of deportation issued by a federal immigration judge,” an ICE spokesperson said to the DCNF. “She illegally entered the United States near El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 24, 1997, and has received legal due process in U.S. immigration court.”
“Under President Trump and [Homeland Security Secretary Kristi] Noem, we are once again a nation of laws. We will find, arrest, and deport illegal aliens regardless of if they were a featured ‘Time Person of the Year,’ the spokesperson continued. “If you come to our country illegally, we will deport you, and you will never return.”
ICE also provided the DCNF with Vizguerra’s criminal and immigration history, which spanned all the way back to 2009.
The Mexican national was convicted of possessing forged documents in February 2009, according to the agency. She was taken into ICE custody immediately, but the agency released her after she posted an immigration bond. In March of that year, she was convicted of driving without a license.
An immigration judge granted her a voluntary departure in November 2011, but she did not self-deport until September 2012, breaking the terms of her order, according to ICE. She was caught a few months later by Border Patrol after attempting to unlawfully enter the U.S. again, and was referred to federal protection for illegal re-entry.
Vizguerra was convicted in a Texas district court of illegal entry in May 2013 and sentenced to probation, according to ICE. She was entered into the agency’s custody and her prior removal order was reinstated, but she was released from custody again and eventually granted two separate applications for stay of deportation, allowing her to temporarily remain in the U.S.
However, in February 2017, with ICE now under the auspices of the first Trump administration, her subsequent application to remain in the U.S. was denied, according to the agency. It was after this denial that Vizguerra took refuge in the First Unitarian Society Church in Denver and did not report to ICE as ordered.
She was taking advantage of a years-long ICE policy on “sensitive locations” that largely prohibited deportation officers from making arrests at churches, schools, hospitals and other areas deemed off-limits to immigration enforcement actions.
From 2017 to 2019, ICE and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services repeatedly denied Vizguerra’s applications for a stay of removal, other appeals and a petition for a U-visa, according to ICE officials. This string of denials ended in December 2021 when, under the Biden administration, ICE granted her a stay of removal for one year, and granted her another stay of removal in February 2023.
Her latest reprieve from deportation expired in February 2024, amid the dawn of the second Trump administration. ICE confirmed to the DCNF that after her arrest on March 17, she was placed into custody at the ICE Denver Contract Detention Facility.
“What is [the Democrats’] angle on due process,” John Fabbricatore, a former ICE Denver field director who was directly involved in Vizguerra’s case, asked when reached by the DCNF. “She’s been through the immigration court process multiple times.”
“She’s had multiple chances and bites at the apple. She’s chosen to throw her middle finger up at U.S. law every single time,” he said.
Now that she has been apprehended again under the Trump administration, Fabbricatore predicts she will ultimately be deported and not released back into the community.
“She doesn’t believe that any law is applicable to her,” he added. “The truth is out there for people to see, yet the Democrats try to put this fantasy fairy tale story about her, which is just not true.”
If Vizguerra were to be released from ICE custody again, there’s little chance she would be able to evade justice in another church. The Trump administration ended the sensitive locations policy in January, giving individuals wanted by deportation officers nowhere in the country to hide — although a lawsuit is currently challenging this policy change.
Trump, who has vowed to conduct the largest deportation operation in U.S. history, has embarked on an exhaustive list of executive orders and other administrative directives aimed at reaching this goal. One of the latest moves was the relaunching of a Biden-era asylum that is now geared toward enabling illegal migrants to more easily self-deport.
ICE encouraged other illegal migrants to take the self-deportation route, allowing them to possibly return legally in the future.
“The safest option for illegal aliens is to self-deport, so they still have the opportunity to return and live the American dream,” a spokesperson for the agency said to the DCNF.
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