A 53-year-old Mexican woman, a mother of four, Jeanette Vizguerra, has been arrested by the ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) after years of chase by federal agents. She was once named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People when she made national headlines for hiding in a Denver church during President Donald Trump’s first term. The Biden administration too stayed her deportation.
Vizguerra was arrested Monday when she was in the parking lot of the Target store in Denver where she worked. Known as an immigration activist, Vizguerra is touted as a criminal by former ICE officials who had been chasing her for years.
Former Denver ICE chief John Fabbricatore said he spent 15 years trying to arrest Vizguerra who led the “abolish ICE movement” in Colorado. She should have been deported in 2009, he said.
What’s Vizguerra’s story? An illegal immigrant who became an activist
According to ICE records, Vizguerra crossed the Texas border illegally in 1997. She managed to get a fake Social Security card with her own name and birth date but someone else’s number on it. In 2009, during the Obama administration, she came on the radar for several incidents of law-breaking. In 2013, she got a deportation order but the Obama administration allowed her to stay. The deportation was reinstated by Trump but her attorney told the administration that she would be taking sanctuary in a church in Denver.
In 2019, she moved into the basement of the church with her three youngest children, all US-born.
She managed to pull a fast on ICE agents every time they planned her deportation — by fleeing to a different church.
After Vizguerra’s arrest, Denver mayor Mike Johnston accused the Trump administration of carrying out “Putin-style” persecution of political dissidents.
Vizguerra was featured in TIME’s TIME100 list 2017—for which actor, producer, and activist America Ferrera wrote: “Jeanette moved to the US to be a janitor, working as an outspoken union organizer and building her own company before becoming an advocate for immigration reform—a bold and risky thing for an undocumented immigrant. … The current Administration has scapegoated immigrants, scaring Americans into believing that undocumented people like Jeanette are criminals. She came to this country not to rape, murder or sell drugs, but to create a better life for her family. … This is not a crime. This is the American Dream.”
