Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have arrested an illegal immigrant who had taken refuge in churches during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Jeanette Vizguerra, also known as Jeanette Vizguerra-Ramirez, was taken into custody on March 17 “without incident,” a spokesperson for ICE told The Epoch Times in an email.
“Vizguerra is a convicted criminal alien from Mexico who has a final order of deportation issued by a federal immigration judge. She illegally entered the United States near El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 24, 1997, and has received legal due process in U.S. immigration court,” the spokesperson said.
Officials plan to deport Vizguerra, 53, whose criminal history includes a conviction for possessing a forged instrument, a fraudulent Social Security card, from the United States.
Jordan Garcia of the American Friends Service Committee, who has been in contact with Vizguerra’s lawyer and family, said that Vizguerra was arrested at a Target store in the Denver area where she works.
Vizguerra has been trying to gain a visa given to crime victims that allows them to remain in the United States since she left sanctuary in churches in 2020, Garcia said.
Vizguerra’s lengthy history with ICE includes being taken into custody on an immigration detainer in 2009. She departed the United States to Mexico in 2012 but was arrested for illegal reentry in Texas in 2013, according to federal officials.
ICE granted several stays of Viguerra’s deportation order. After it denied another application for a stay, Vizguerra took refuge in a church in Denver, Colorado.
After President Joe Biden took office, ICE granted several more stays of Vizguerra’s deportation. The final one expired in February 2024.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said that ICE should release Vizguerra, while her family said in a statement that it hoped the agency would work with her counsel to release her immediately.
Vizguerra’s lawyers said ICE is attempting to remove her based on an order that was never valid. Petitions challenging her detention have been filed in both Denver’s federal court and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“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,” one of the attorneys, Laura Lichter, said in a statement.
Vizguerra filed a lawsuit against ICE in 2019 that alleged ICE did not have a valid order to deport her after she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count in the Social Security fraud case because it says she voided it by agreeing to self-deport to Mexico. Vizguerra later dropped the suit.
