A Denver-based “immigration activist,” and by that you can safely infer “illegal immigration activist,” who was arrested by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier in March, has now had her case brought before a U.S. District Court judge, who has temporarily blocked the activist’s deportation order pending further legal action. The activist, Jeanette Vizguerra, has been in the United States illegally since 1997.
A federal judge in Denver is set to hear arguments Friday over whether an immigration and labor activist who took refuge in Colorado churches to avoid deportation during the first Trump administration should be freed from detention.
Jeanette Vizguerra was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 17 and is being held at its immigration detention facility in suburban Denver.
ICE says Vizguerra entered the U.S. from Mexico illegally in 1997 and is being held pending deportation. In a statement shortly after her arrest, ICE said the mother of four has a final deportation order and “has received legal due process in U.S. immigration court.”
But her lawyers say the order is not valid. They have filed a legal challenge asking U.S. District Judge Nina Wang to order federal authorities to release her.
Wang issued an order halting Vizguerra’s deportation while the legal challenge plays out.
Judge Wang, we should note, is a legal immigrant, originally from Taiwan, and was appointed to her current role by President Biden. This may not signify anything, of course; there are plenty of legal immigrants who look harshly at people who enter the country illegally, they having followed the proper process themselves. And note that Judge Wang has made no ruling on the merits of the case; she has just placed the deportation order on hold while the legal process is played out.
Her lawyers say the order is not valid, but given Vizguerra’s history, that’s hard to credit.
My colleague Rusty Weiss, earlier in March, brought us the story of Vizguerra’s arrest.
Previously on RedState: ‘Got You’: Illegal Who Evaded Deportation During Trump’s First Term by Hiding in a Church Arrested by ICE
Rusty wrote:
Jeanette Vizguerra was detained by officials outside Target, where she was working just outside of Denver.
Jordan Garcia, an immigrant-rights advocate, claims the illegal alien was told by one ICE agent, “We finally got you.”
A timeline put together by the New York Times shows that Vizguerra illegally entered the United States in 1997 and didn’t pop up on law enforcement radar until 2009 when a traffic stop yielded evidence that she had used a fake Social Security card.
She pleaded guilty to “attempted possession of a forged instrument” and spent roughly three weeks in jail. In 2013, she left the country to visit her ailing mother and tried to come across the border in Texas yet again. She was convicted of illegal entry and sentenced to a year of supervised probation.
This is a person who entered the country illegally, remained in the country illegally, possessed and used a falsified ID, and was never sent back to Mexico.
Denver, we should note, is a “sanctuary city.”
SEE ALSO: Sanctuary City Mayor Slammed in Congress for Release of Violent Tren de Aragua Gang Member
ICE has been trying to repatriate Vizguerra since the Obama administration.
ICE began trying to deport Vizguerra in 2009 during the Obama administration after she was pulled over in suburban Denver and found to have a fraudulent Social Security card with her own name and birth date but someone else’s number, according to a 2019 lawsuit she brought against ICE. Vizguerra did not know the number belonged to someone else at the time, the lawsuit said.
Note that last sentence; she claims she “did not know” the social security card was fraudulent. This is the purest horse squeeze, and that false statement alone warrants her being repatriated.
The fact is that Jeanette Vizguerra is a poster child for everything that’s wrong with how the United States and the various “sanctuary” jurisdictions have handled illegal immigrants for some time now. She knowingly entered the United States illegally. She knowingly remained in the United States illegally, as evidenced by her hiding from immigration authorities in a church. She has been an advocate for illegal immigration, and she carried and showed authorities a forged ID. One could argue that she has not only broken multiple immigration laws but that she has been openly defiant of our immigration laws.
Indeed, it may well be easier to ask what immigration laws Jeanette Vizguerra has not broken. This is a person who should be repatriated, and that repatriation should be publicized, pour encourager les autres.
Thanks to President Trump, illegal immigration into our great country has virtually stopped. Despite the radical left’s lies, new legislation wasn’t needed to secure our border, just a new president.
You can help us continue to report the truth about the president’s border policies and mass deportations by joining RedState VIP and using promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
