DENVER (AP) — A prominent Colorado immigration and labor activist was released Monday after spending nine months in immigration detention, supporters said.
Jeanette Vizguerra left an immigration detention center in suburban Denver a day after a judge ruled she could post a $5,000 bond, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which has been working with Vizguerra’s lawyers and her family.
Vizguerra gained prominence after she took refuge in churches in Colorado to avoid deportation during the first Trump administration. Time magazine named her one of the world’s most influential people in 2017. She was arrested earlier this year in the parking lot of the Denver-area Target store where she worked.
In a statement Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said Vizguerra has received full due process and that it would continue to carry out its work. We will find, arrest and deport illegal aliens regardless of if they were a featured ‘Time Person of the Year,’ it said.
Vizguerra, who came to Colorado in 1997 from Mexico City, has been fighting deportation since 2009 after being pulled over in suburban Denver and found with a fraudulent Social Security card that had her name and birthdate but someone else’s actual number, according to a 2019 lawsuit she brought against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Vizguerra did not know the number belonged to someone else at that time.
Her lawyers have claimed that ICE has attempted to deport her based on an order that was never valid and have challenged her detention in federal court.
A federal judge recently ordered that a bond hearing be held to determine whether Vizguerra should continue to be held in the detention facility as her case progresses.
Vizguerra expressed her gratitude to her attorneys, stating that their effort reflects a larger fight for constitutional rights and human dignity for all people.
Jeanette Vizguerra left an immigration detention center in suburban Denver a day after a judge ruled she could post a $5,000 bond, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which has been working with Vizguerra’s lawyers and her family.
Vizguerra gained prominence after she took refuge in churches in Colorado to avoid deportation during the first Trump administration. Time magazine named her one of the world’s most influential people in 2017. She was arrested earlier this year in the parking lot of the Denver-area Target store where she worked.
In a statement Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security said Vizguerra has received full due process and that it would continue to carry out its work. We will find, arrest and deport illegal aliens regardless of if they were a featured ‘Time Person of the Year,’ it said.
Vizguerra, who came to Colorado in 1997 from Mexico City, has been fighting deportation since 2009 after being pulled over in suburban Denver and found with a fraudulent Social Security card that had her name and birthdate but someone else’s actual number, according to a 2019 lawsuit she brought against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Vizguerra did not know the number belonged to someone else at that time.
Her lawyers have claimed that ICE has attempted to deport her based on an order that was never valid and have challenged her detention in federal court.
A federal judge recently ordered that a bond hearing be held to determine whether Vizguerra should continue to be held in the detention facility as her case progresses.
Vizguerra expressed her gratitude to her attorneys, stating that their effort reflects a larger fight for constitutional rights and human dignity for all people.
