The mayor of Denver issued a harsh rebuke of President Donald Trump‘s administration following Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest of Jeanette Vizguerra, a criminal illegal immigrant who is a prominent immigrant rights activist in Colorado.
Mayor Mike Johnston said the Trump administration’s decision to go after Vizguerra, who hid in a church to avoid arrest for years prior to Trump’s second term, was comparable to actions seen in Russia.
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“Jeanette Vizguerra is a mom of American citizens, a Target employee, a nonprofit leader and an immigration reform advocate with no violent criminal history,” Johnston said in a statement posted to X. “Her detainment is not about safety. This is Putin-style persecution of political dissidents.”
Local news outlets reported Tuesday morning that Vizguerra, a Mexican citizen, was arrested by ICE officers while walking into her place of work.
Following her arrest, she was transported and booked into ICE’s Aurora Processing Center, an immigrant detention center outside Denver.
Several dozen protesters gathered outside the facility’s fence and called for Vizguerra’s immediate release.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) said in a post to X that Vizguerra should have her day in court.
“Jeanette Vizguerra is a mother and pillar in her community,” he wrote. “I am deeply concerned about ICE’s actions to detain her without any due process, like a deportation order. ICE should ensure Jeanette has legal counsel and immediately release her.”
John Fabbricatore, the former director of ICE’s Denver field office, said Vizguerra had her day in court many times.
“She is a criminal and has had due process numerous times,” Fabbricatore wrote in a post. “She has lied and circumvented our immigration laws for over 15 years. She has a deportation order. She was ordered deported. Left to ‘visit her mom’ in Mexico and re-entered the US. She is a reinstatement case if she is no longer a final order. She has no right to see a judge as a re-entry. She continuously breaks the law because you and other democrats constantly coddle her. Sayonara Señorita!”
Vizguerra, who came to the United States illegally in 1997, made a name for herself following a 2009 run-in with police in Colorado. She was pulled over that year for a traffic violation and later convicted for falsifying documents related to the traffic ticket.
An immigration judge ordered her to be removed from the U.S., which she unsuccessfully appealed numerous times.
During Trump’s first term in 2017, Vizguerra was denied a sixth appeal and took refuge in a local church, where under ICE policy, officers were prohibited from making arrests inside without a criminal warrant. Vizguerra hid out in the First Unitarian Church in Denver for three years.
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Vizguerra told CBS News Colorado in January that she believed all illegal immigrants, not just criminals, were at risk of being arrested and deported under Trump.
“I don’t care if it’s a hospital, I don’t care if it’s a school, I don’t care if it’s a church … I don’t care if some people have 40, 50 years here,” Vizguerra told CBS News Colorado. “Everybody is at risk.”