DENVER — A lawyer for a outstanding immigration activist arrested this month informed a choose Friday that authorities seem like retaliating in opposition to Jeanette Vizguerra years after she took refuge in Denver church buildings to keep away from deportation in the course of the first Trump administration.
Vizguerra was arrested within the car parking zone of the Denver-area Goal retailer the place she labored on March 17.
“We lastly acquired you,” brokers informed Vizguerra, in accordance with her lawyer, Laura Lichter.
Lichter informed U.S. District Decide Nina Wang that she suspects Vizguerra was being focused as a result of she was exercising her First Modification proper to speech. Lichter cited unspecified media and social media experiences as proof of retaliation.
Lichter declined to elaborate on what speech she believed Vizguerra was being focused for, however drew a connection between her detention and the detention of others, together with protesters on school campuses, who’ve been detained by immigration authorities just lately.
“I consider that the focusing on right here of Jeanette is according to what we’re seeing in different varieties of instances the place persons are being focused for displaying up at protests, for posting sure messages on social media, for having a selected opinion,” Lichter mentioned.
Legal professionals had been set to argue over whether or not U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement may proceed holding Vizguerra in detention in suburban Denver. Legal professionals say she is being held on an invalid deportation order from 2013.
However Wang delayed these arguments after Vizguerra’s legal professionals mentioned they might change their authorized problem to additionally declare that her First Modification rights had been being violated.
Assistant U.S. Legal professional Timothy Jafek mentioned the federal government didn’t object to the change however didn’t reply to the retaliation allegation in courtroom.
ICE says Vizguerra entered the U.S. from Mexico illegally in 1997 and is being held pending deportation. In a press release shortly after her arrest, ICE mentioned the mom of 4 has a last deportation order and “has obtained authorized due course of in U.S. immigration courtroom.”
As they’ve completed with different arrests just lately, company officers posted a photograph on social media of Vizguerra being taken into custody along with her fingers behind her again and a sequence round her waist.
Wang issued an order halting Vizguerra’s deportation whereas the authorized problem performs out. She has famous the case raises “complicated points” about immigration legislation and he or she couldn’t discover a related case.
ICE started making an attempt to deport Vizguerra in 2009 in the course of the Obama administration after she was pulled over in suburban Denver and located to have a fraudulent Social Safety card along with her personal identify and start date however another person’s quantity, in accordance with a 2019 lawsuit she introduced in opposition to ICE. Vizguerra didn’t know the quantity belonged to another person on the time, the lawsuit mentioned.
Whereas a choose issued an order of removing in opposition to her, she additionally was given the choice to go away the nation voluntarily, which she in the end did to attempt to see her mom earlier than she died in 2012, her legal professionals mentioned within the present petition earlier than Wang.
ICE wrongfully reissued a deportation order for her in 2013 and didn’t present correct discover to Vizguerra, the petition says.
Whereas Vizguerra has obtained a number of deportation delays up to now, her final keep expired over a 12 months in the past in February 2024, legal professionals for the federal government mentioned in a response to her petition. Till now, they are saying Vizguerra has by no means challenged the deportation order with the federal appeals courtroom, which they are saying is the courtroom that ought to determine whether or not it’s legitimate.
