How Trump finally nailed illegal immigrant activist — touted by Time magazine — who used churches to evade ICE for years

| THE NEW YORK TIMES | Published March 20, 2025

“We’ve known about her for years and she’s gone through the whole immigration process,” former Denver ICE chief John Fabbricatore told The Post.

The Trump administration finally nabbed an immigration activist who eluded federal agents for years and hid in churches where she was shielded from arrest.

Jeanette Vizguerra, a 53-year-old Mexican mom of four, was once named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People for hiding from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in a Colorado church.

After years of chasing her, ICE finally got its hands on Vizguerra Monday when she was in the parking lot of the Target store in Denver where she worked, according to Jordan Garcia, another immigrant rights activist, told the New York Times.

“This woman should’ve been removed in 2009,” he added.

She is awaiting deportation in an ICE detention center in Aurora.

Vizguerra crossed the Texas border illegally in 1997, an ICE spokesperson told The Post.

She first found herself the target of ICE in 2009 during the Obama administration, when she was pulled over in Denver and found to have a fake Social Security card with her own name and birth date but someone else’s number on it.

At the time, the Mexican national claimed she didn’t know the number was someone else’s.

Two months later, Vizguerra was caught driving without a license and insurance, ICE said.

An immigration judge gave Vizguerra the opportunity to leave the US on her own terms, which she failed to do.

The next year, she left for Mexico while she was appealing her removal and then crossed again into the US illegally and was subsequently convicted of illegal entry, a felony which resulted in a year of probation, ICE said.

She again received a deportation order in 2013. But the Obama administration paused the order, allowing her to stay.

When President Trump entered office for the first time, her removal order was reinstated. However, her attorney “notified ICE that she would be taking sanctuary in the First Unitarian Society Church in Denver and would not be reporting to ICE as ordered,” the agency said.

Vizguerra moved into the basement of the Colorado church in 2019 with her three youngest children, all of whom were born in the US, where they sought refuge on and off for the next three years.

She was even given the opportunity to leave on her own on a commercial flight through a deal Fabbricatore and her attorney agreed to, but she failed to depart and again went into hiding in another church, according to the former ICE chief.

“This is not immigration enforcement intended to keep our country safe,” he said in a statement.

Vizguerra’s attorneys argued that ICE is trying to deport her based on an illegitimate order from her 2009 arrest.

“If ICE proceeds with trying to remove her without legal authority, it sends a chilling message about the agency’s disregard for due process and the rule of law,” said one of the attorneys, Laura Lichter.

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SOURCE: www.nypost.com

RELATED: What to Know About ICE’s Controversial Arrest of Former TIME100 Listee Jeannette Vizguerra

Undocumented immigrant Jeanette Vizguerra takes sanctuary at the First Baptist Church in Denver, Colorado, on May 5, 2017.John Moore—Getty Images

| TIME | Published March 20, 2025

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.

“We’re urgently working on collaborating with partners to demand her immediate release,” NDWA media relations director Daniela Perez told TIME. “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 where she worked in Denver on Monday, Jordan Garcia of the American Friends Service Committee told the Associated Press. An ICE spokesperson confirmed to TIME that Vizguerra was arrested without incident on March 17, adding that she will remain in custody pending her deportation.

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.

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.

“Jeanette has lived in the United States for nearly 30 years, planted roots here, raised children and grandchildren here, cared for offices and homes here, organized janitors and fought for better pay and benefits for her colleagues here,” NDWA president Ai-jen Poo, another former TIME100 listee, wrote in a post on Instagram. “She has been in and out of deportation proceedings since 2009, fighting every step of the way for the right to be where she belongs – in her home, with her family.”

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!!!!”

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 which allowed for voluntary departure. In 2012, Vizguerra voluntarily left for Mexico, before re-entering in 2013. A judge then sentenced her for misdemeanor illegal entry to a year of unsupervised probation, and ICE reinstated her 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. Since 2014, Vizguerra has filed at least 10 petitions or appeals for deportation stays or visas, four of which were granted during the Obama and Biden Administrations, and six of which were denied during Trump’s first term, according to a timeline provided by ICE.

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. Following her arrest on Monday, Vizguerra filed a habeas corpus petition alleging unlawful detention with the Colorado District Court.

An ICE spokesperson told TIME that Vizguerra is a “convicted criminal alien from Mexico who has a final order of deportation issued by a federal immigration judge.” The spokesperson added that she “has received legal due process in U.S. immigration court.”

“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.