ICE Captures Immigration Activist Who Evaded Arrest for Years Hiding in Churches

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After years of evading federal authorities by taking refuge in churches, immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra has been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The 53-year-old Mexican mother of four, once named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, was arrested Monday in the parking lot of a Target store in Denver, where she worked.

Vizguerra had been a vocal leader in the “Abolish ICE” movement in Colorado, repeatedly avoiding deportation despite multiple removal orders. Former Denver ICE chief John Fabbricatore, who spent 15 years tracking her, described her as a “horrible and smug” criminal who manipulated the immigration system. “We’ve known about her for years, and she’s gone through the whole immigration process. This woman should’ve been removed in 2009,” Fabbricatore told The Post.

Now in custody at an ICE detention center in Aurora, Vizguerra is awaiting deportation, reports the New York Post.

Vizguerra first crossed into the U.S. illegally through Texas in 1997. Her legal troubles began in 2009 under the Obama administration when she was pulled over in Denver and found carrying a fraudulent Social Security card with her name but another person’s number. She claimed ignorance about the number belonging to someone else.

Just two months later, she was caught driving without a license or insurance. She was ordered to leave the country voluntarily but did not comply.

In 2010, while appealing her removal, Vizguerra returned to Mexico but later reentered the U.S. illegally. This led to a conviction for illegal entry, a felony that resulted in a year of probation. Another deportation order was issued in 2013, but the Obama administration paused her removal, allowing her to stay.

When Donald Trump became president in 2017, her deportation order was reinstated. Rather than complying, Vizguerra took sanctuary in Denver’s First Unitarian Society Church, where she and her three youngest U.S.-born children lived intermittently for three years. In 2019, she entered an agreement with ICE that would have allowed her to leave on a commercial flight, but instead, she went into hiding in another church.

“She was supposed to go to the Denver airport the next day,” Fabbricatore recalled. “Instead of going, she goes into another church and claimed sanctuary in that other church, totally screwing over the agreement.”

In an attempt to obtain legal status, Vizguerra later applied for a visa, claiming she was a victim of a crime. Her application was denied.

When President Joe Biden took office, her deportation was once again paused until February 2024. However, ICE agents finally caught up with her outside her workplace this week.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston condemned the arrest, comparing it to “Putin-style persecution of political dissidents.”