Posted March 20 2025
Jeanette Vizguerra, a Colorado community leader and mother, has led the fight against her own deportation since 2009. She is the mother of four children – a permanent resident, and three U.S. citizen children.
On Monday March 17, 2025, ICE acted without a valid deportation order and without notifying Ms. Vizguerra or her lawyers. ICE suddenly took her into custody and rapidly placed her in detention at the GEO Group for-profit facility. Her attorneys immediately raised serious legal errors and concerns that her due process rights are being violated with officials on Monday. On Tuesday, March 18, they have filed a habeas motion with the district court.
Early Tuesday morning, observers noted men and women being loaded onto buses at the GEO facility. The buses proceeded to the airport and are still there (as reported on March 18). ICE would not confirm her location and a staff person inside GEO stated she was no longer at the facility.
At 8:00am the legal team began filing a habeas with the district court to challenge her unlawful detention by ICE.
At 9:46am her family received a call from Jeanette confirming she is still inside the GEO detention center. “We are relieved to know our mom is still inside the detention facility and appreciate her calls being restored. We hope ICE will work with her attorney to release her immediately. She thanks everyone who spent the night in vigil with us”.
Ms. Vizguerra was able to briefly call her daughter on March 17 before the facility cut off phone access for unknown reasons. Concerned for her safety, her family led an all-night vigil outside GEO from Monday to Tuesday with dozens of community members. Participants engaged in songs and drumming as well as chanting, lit candles and contacted press and congressional offices. They now call on community to focus their efforts on sharing Jeanette’s story and calling for her release. Sign the petition at https://secure.afsc.org/a/freejeanette.
The family also calls on community to attend the March 19 rally for Mr. Mahmoud Khalil and Ms. Lequaa Kordia – both targeted for speaking out. The rally will take place at 3:30pm at the Auraria campus in Denver.
“Let’s be clear what happened today. 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 non-profit.” stated Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.
“This is the great lie of the Trump Administration. This is not about safety. This is about political theater and political retribution. This doesn’t make this country safer. It makes this country lawless, which is the most unsafe thing any president can do,” said Mayor Johnston.
“Arresting Jeanette is a plain abuse of power to go after someone for their political views without the due process that is a cornerstone of our American values. Now is the time to stand up and demand that ICE and the Trump Administration release Jeanette and give her the due process and legal rights she deserves.” Watch Mayor Johnston’s comments from March 18.
Vizguerra immigrated to Colorado with her eldest daughter and husband from her Mexico City, Mexico in 1997 after her husband was threatened at gunpoint. Initially, Jeanette worked cleaning office buildings and became a member and later organizer of SEIU Local 105, where she fought for better pay and benefits for janitors. She joined Rights for All People, a local community organization, and worked to establish trust and relationship between the immigrant community and the police. She and her husband started a moving and cleaning company and eventually had three more US citizen children.
In 2009, Jeanette was placed into deportation proceedings following a routine traffic stop which began with racial profiling for a “dirty license plate”. The officer searched her belongs and found documents that resulted in a conviction in the Arapahoe County Court for M3 Attempted Possession of a Forged Instrument (an ID that could be used for work for example).
In her immigration case, Jeanette applied for Cancellation of Removal and became one of the first individuals in Colorado to publicly share the circumstances of her deportation case. Jeanette worked hard to inspire others with courage and passion, but her case was denied by the Denver Immigration Judge on November 18, 2011.
On December 16, 2011, she appealed her case to the Board of Immigration Appeals. However, in September 2012, while her appeal was pending, Jeanette received a call from Mexico that her mother was dying. Despite 17 years in the US and thousands of miles, Jeanette and her mother spoke weekly. There are no humanitarian visas or programs available for those circumstances and Jeanette decided she had to be at her mother’s side before she died. She flew to Mexico the next day but, while she was in the air, her mother died. In departing, Jeanette withdrew her pending BIA appeal.
Seven months later, Jeanette returned to the United States to continue to care for her three U.S. citizen children, and on April 20, 2013, was apprehended by US Customs and Border Protection. On May 1, 2013, she pleaded guilty to one count of illegal entry under 8 USC 1325(a)(1) and was sentenced to one-year unsupervised probation.
On June 7, 2013, Jeanette was released from ICE custody in El Paso, Texas under an Order of Supervision that ordered her to report to the ICE field office in Centennial, CO on July 10, 2013. She appeared and was then ordered to check in a second time, on July 24, 2013. At that check-in, Jeanette was taken into custody. She filed an I-246, Application for Stay of Deportation or Removal for a period of one year, which was granted on August 8, 2013. Jeanette has fully complied with all terms of her Stay of Removal and received five extensions. On February 8, 2016, Jeanette filed a U-Visa application to USCIS as a victim of crime who cooperated with law enforcement officials in the prosecution of that crime.
Following the inauguration of President Donald Trump, on February 15, 2017, ICE denied Jeanette’s sixth Stay of Removal renewal application, and she entered into sanctuary at the First Unitarian Church in Denver, Colorado. On January 30, 2017, U.S. Congressman Jared Polis (CO-02) introduced H.R. 752, a private bill that would also provide Jeanette with a path to permanent residency. On February 8, 2017, H.R. 752 was assigned to the Immigration and Border Security subcommittee. On March 9, 2017, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) introduced S. 603, a private bill in the Senate that mirrors H.R. 752. As a result of these bills, Jeanette was granted a two year stay on March 15, 2017.
On March 15, 2019, her stay of deportation was not renewed. Jeanette took Sanctuary for the second time. She was able to leave sanctuary in 2020.
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