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Tag: jeanette vizguerra

  • Jeanette Vizguerra, detained immigrant activist, likely to be released in coming days

    Immigrant activist Jeanette Vizguerra is on the precipice of being released from an immigration detention facility after an immigration judge ruled Sunday that she can post bail.

    Denver immigration judge Brea Burgie set Vizguerra’s bail at $5,000, but she included no other restrictions, like an ankle monitor. Her family intends to immediately post the bond, her legal team said in a statement. She likely won’t be released for at least 24 to 48 hours, said Jenn Piper, the program co-director for the American Friends Service Committee of Denver. Still, Burgie’s ruling means Vizguerra, a mother of four children, will be home by Christmas.

    The order comes two days after Vizguerra’s legal team argued that the activist, who was born in Mexico and has spent most of the last 28 years in the United States, posed no flight risk and was not a danger to the community. She has been detained in the Aurora detention center since March, when she was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at her work.

    Vizguerra’s legal team said Sunday that Burgie found that Vizguerra “does not pose a danger to the community,” nor did she pose a flight risk, given her “strong family and community ties” and her previous compliance with court proceedings.

    Seth Klamann

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  • Immigration judge weighs release of activist Jeanette Vizguerra after ICE sought to block media’s court access

    An immigration judge will decide in the coming days whether to temporarily release an immigrant rights activist after a Friday bail hearing that was delayed when authorities tried to block media access to the courtroom.

    Attorneys representing Jeanette Vizguerra told the judge, Brea Burgie, that government lawyers had provided no evidence that Vizguerra posed a flight risk or a danger to the community.

    Vizguerra, a nationally renowned activist, has been in the Aurora detention center since her March arrest, and her attorneys reiterated their allegations Friday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials intentionally targeted Vizguerra because of her public profile and advocacy. They asked Burgie to release Vizguerra, who was born in Mexico and does not have proper legal status, on bail while the rest of her immigration case proceeds.

    “Detention is not justified,” said Laura Lichter, one of Vizguerra’s lawyers.

    Shana Martin, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, argued that Vizguerra should continue to be detained indefinitely because, Martin said, she was both dangerous and a flight risk. Martin pointed to Vizguerra’s criminal conviction for using a fake Social Security card so she could work, as well as to traffic violations, as evidence that she “shows a lack of respect for authority.”

    One of Vizguerra’s daughters recently joined the Air Force, and Vizguerra applied for a form of legal status based on her daughter’s military service. Martin said that application has been denied — something Lichter said was news to Vizguerra and her lawyers.

    Lichter said after the hearing that she’d never seen that type of application denied in a case like Vizguerra’s. She told Burgie that the denial was “fantastic evidence” of the government’s bias against her client.

    CIting the extreme complexity of the case, Burgie said she would issue a written decision on whether to grant bail to Vizguerra at a later date. The Denver judge appeared remotely in the Aurora detention center’s hearing room.

    As Vizguerra waited in a hallway outside the courtroom, she blew a kiss to family members and waved to supporters.

    The hearing came two days after a U.S. District Court judge ordered federal officials to provide Vizguerra with a bail hearing before Christmas.

    Proceedings were delayed Friday morning after personnel at the detention center, which is privately run by the Geo Group, told reporters and supporters that they couldn’t enter the courtroom. It’s typically open to observers, family members of detainees and journalists who provide photo ID and go through a security checkpoint.

    Earlier Friday morning, a Denver Post reporter was waiting for an escort to the courtroom when a Geo Group lieutenant approached and asked what courtroom he was visiting. When the reporter said he was there to watch the Vizguerra hearing, the lieutenant told him the courtroom was full and escorted him back to the lobby.

    Juan Baltazar, the facility’s warden, later told reporters that they wouldn’t be allowed into the courtroom “partially” because of space constraints, as well as because of unspecified “safety and security” concerns.

    Seth Klamann

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  • Detained immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra must get bail hearing before Christmas, judge rules

    Immigration authorities must provide detained activist Jeanette Vizguerra with a bail hearing in the next week, a federal judge ruled Wednesday in Denver.

    The order offers an avenue for potential temporary release for Vizguerra, an immigrant without proper legal status who has spent nine months in federal immigration detention.

    The activist was arrested in March and has been fighting efforts by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain and deport her ever since. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Nina Wang requires that authorities give Vizguerra the opportunity to seek a temporary release before an immigration judge in Aurora’s detention center by Christmas Eve.

    Her hearing is currently set for Friday morning, according to one of her attorneys, Laura Lichter.

    If granted bail, Vizguerra would be released from detention while her immigration case continues to wind its way through the courts. Because Vizguerra is fighting her deportation both in federal court and in immigration court, it will likely be “many months or even years” before her case is fully resolved, Wang said.

    The Mexico-born activist has lived in the United States for more than 30 years and has repeatedly fought attempts to deport her, though she accepted a voluntary departure in 2011. During the first Trump administration, she sought shelter in a Denver church and was named by TIME as one of the most influential people of 2017. She left the church’s sanctuary and was given reprieves by ICE.

    Seth Klamann

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