Attorneys fighting the detention and potential deportation of well-known immigrant activist Jeanette Vizguerra argued in Denver federal court Friday that ICE retaliated against her in violation of her right to free speech.
Vizguerra, who is being held at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Aurora after she was “literally ambushed in the Target parking lot” on March 17, was targeted because of her activism, according to her attorney Laura Lichter.
Lichter previously argued in filings in federal court that ICE does not have reason to detain Vizguerra because there is no valid order to remove her from the country. During the case’s first hearing Friday, Lichter added First Amendment claims to the petition asking for Vizguerra’s release.
Vizguerra did not attend the hearing in U.S. District Court, but her family and friends filled several rows in the courtroom.
ICE agents who surrounded Vizguerra while she was on a break from her job at Target said, “We finally got you,” as they arrested the grandmother and chained her around the waist, Lichter said, an indication that the detention was personal.
Lichter has until April 8 to file her amended petition adding the First Amendment claims. The government has until April 29 to respond. Vizguerra will not face deportation within that time, said Timothy Jafek, the government’s attorney.
Vizguerra, 53, became an activist not only to fight her deportation but for immigrant rights nationwide. The mother of four, including three U.S. citizens, crossed the border from Mexico near El Paso, Texas, in 1997, with her husband and one daughter after her husband was threatened at gunpoint in Mexico, she said. She and her husband initially worked as janitors in office buildings and then started a moving and cleaning business.
In 2009, Vizguerra was pulled over by an Arapahoe County sheriff’s deputy, a traffic stop that resulted in a conviction for “attempted possession of a forged instrument” after authorities determined she had a false Social Security number. The incident resulted in a judge’s order to remove her from the United States, an order which — after years of legal ups and downs — ICE recently reinstated.
In 2017, after President Donald Trump was elected to his first term, immigration authorities denied Vizguerra’s application for a stay of removal. Instead of reporting to ICE as ordered, she moved into First Unitarian Society Church in Denver because federal immigration agents at the time were prohibited from making arrests inside churches.
Vizguerra lived in the church for a few months until — as the result of legislation introduced by Democrats Gov. Jared Polis, then a congressman, and Sen. Michael Bennet — she received a two-year stay of removal in March 2017.
Vizguerra returned to the church two years later, in March 2019, when her stay expired. She left the sanctuary in 2020.Immigration authorities have called Vizguerra a “criminal illegal alien” and said she would remain in custody until her removal.
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