In 1997, Jeanette Vizguerra left Mexico City for Colorado, where she became a janitor and immigration reform advocate. Twenty years later, she was one of the most influential people in the world. Now, the mother of four and National Domestic Workers Alliance member has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the NDWA told TIME, amid President Donald Trump’s politicized deportation crackdown that has appeared to ramp up in recent days.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
“We’re urgently working on collaborating with partners to demand her immediate release,” National Domestic Workers Alliance media relations director Daniela Perez told TIME on Tuesday. “Lawless ICE detainments and deportations are attacks on all of our freedoms. We will not allow ICE or leaders who stoke fear and division to terrorize our loved ones and neighbors.”
Vizguerra was arrested at a Target in Denver on Monday, Jordan Garcia of the American Friends Service Committee told the Associated Press.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said the arrest of Vizguerra is “not about safety. This is Putin-style persecution of political dissidents.” Protestors calling for Vizguerra’s release gathered outside a detention center in the Aurora suburb, where her family said she is being held.
Vizguerra rose to prominence for living in Denver churches for three months in 2017, eventually winning a two-year deportation delay after Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet and former Rep. now Gov. Jared Polis, both Democrats, introduced bills to help her and another Mexican immigrant remain in the country.
In one of his first actions of his second term, Trump rescinded a Biden-era policy that protected “sensitive” areas, including schools, hospitals and churches, from ICE arrests. The Department of Homeland Security then issued a directive, titled “Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas,” that gave ICE agents unbridled access to these places.
Read More: How Schools Are Navigating Trump’s Immigration Policies
Vizguerra was featured in TIME’s TIME100 list in 2017—for which actor, producer, and activist America Ferrera wrote: “Jeanette moved to the U.S. 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.”
Vizguerra again sought shelter in a church sanctuary in 2019 after her deportation stay was not renewed, before leaving the church grounds in 2020 and attempting to get a U visa, which is sometimes given to victims of crime, according to Garcia. Vizguerra fled Mexico after her husband, who was a bus driver, was held up at gunpoint three times, according to a 2011 documentary about their immigration ordeal.
While historically immigration enforcement has prioritized those who threaten national security or public safety, Trump has expanded enforcement priorities during his first and second terms, in keeping with his campaign promise to pursue “mass deportations.” Vizguerra is the mother of three U.S. citizens and one so-called “Dreamer,” a recipient of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that provided work permits to and shielded from deportation certain undocumented immigrants who came as children. Trump rescinded DACA during his first term, though President Joe Biden reinstated it. Vizguerra would have been eligible for the similar Obama-era Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program, which Trump also rescinded during his first term. At the start of his second term, Trump also revoked Biden’s immigration enforcement priorities, which included focusing on those with “serious” criminal records, in favor of a broader effort to crack down on all unauthorized immigrants.
John Fabbricatore, a former Denver field office director for ICE, said in a post on X on Tuesday that the Biden Administration prevented him from deporting Vizguerra years earlier. “She should have been deported in 2009 as well,” Fabbricatore, an outspoken Trump supporter, wrote. “She is a criminal, hates Trump, and is an open-borders, abolish-ICE advocate. Bye!!!!”
Besides entering the country unlawfully, Vizguerra was convicted in 2009 of misdemeanor possession of forged documents, which she said she needed for employment, after which a judge in 2011 issued a deportation order but allowed her to remain in the U.S. under ICE supervision. Vizguerra’s lawyers told the AP that ICE is now trying to deport her based on that order, which they say was never valid.
“The only thing that I’ve done is use false documents to put food on the table of my family,” Vizguerra said through a translator at an address to supporters and media outside a Denver church in 2017.
Vizguerra filed a lawsuit in 2019 alleging that ICE “carried out a yearslong campaign” to deport her without “valid justification.” She later dropped the lawsuit, according to the AP.
As of late Tuesday, ICE and DHS have not publicly confirmed Vizguerra’s detention nor commented on new developments in her case, and neither the agency nor the department immediately responded to TIME’s requests for this story.
