Jeanette Vizguerra is not a hardened criminal — she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in 2009 and served 21 days in jail for her crime.
Vizguerra is not a threat to safety — she runs a local nonprofit, works at Target and has raised four children, three who are U.S. citizens.
Vizguerra is not a drain on society — there’s no indication Vizguerra has ever been on any type of welfare.
So why was the 53-year-old grandmother detained by federal officials outside of a Colorado Target this week and shackled in a chain and handcuffs? And why are local Republicans smearing her good name as if she is a gang member freshly arrested for brandishing a weapon?
We don’t have to guess.
President Donald Trump is on a mission to eradicate immigrants from the United States who came here illegally — all 10 million to 15 million of them — regardless of what they contribute to our communities. Since he first launched a bid for president in 2015, Trump has intentionally painted all illegal immigrants as dangerous criminals. He sees no difference between a mother working hard to support four children and a Tren de Aragua member engaged in organized criminal activity.
The stated mission of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has not changed, according to its website: “to protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.”
According to Denver’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, their goal is still “to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of noncitizens who undermine the safety of our communities.”
Vizguerra is not a threat to national security or public safety. She should not be deported and we call for her immediate release from the ICE detention facility in Aurora.
Vizguerra has repeatedly been granted stays of deportation so she could remain in America with her family.
Arresting her this week only makes a mockery of the hard, dangerous and serious work ICE officials perform every week to keep Americans safe from violent criminals who entered the country illegally. The federal employees at ICE did not sign up for their jobs to terrorize communities and steal grandmothers from their families without even a goodbye.
We have questions about Vizguerra’s legal status. Her family says she was working at Target but the Writ of Habeas Corpus her attorneys filed on her behalf admits that Vizguerra has no legal status in the U.S. Those two things are incompatible under current law.
America’s undocumented workers face this crush of obligation versus legality daily. For decades leaders — both Republicans and Democrats — have refused to provide a path to legal work or legal status but also have failed to secure the border from new illegal crossings.
Now it’s too late. For the next four years Trump will deport as many illegal immigrants as he can, ignoring decades of wisdom from past leaders who have said splitting up families and driving people from good jobs into hiding where they often turn to crime to make ends meet is not good for communities.
Since 2011, Vizguerra has been fighting a deportation order that stemmed from her 2009 arrest in Arapahoe County for a fake Social Security card found in her bag by deputies who had pulled her over for a traffic violation. She has unsuccessfully appealed the order, but has repeatedly been granted stays of deportation, in essence, legal permission to remain in America despite her deportation orders.
In 2017, shortly after President Donald Trump first took office, her application for renewal of her stay of deportation was denied, and she took shelter in the First Unitarian Society Church in Denver claiming sanctuary from removal.
Her story gained national attention, and we supported her efforts to remain with her young children and wrote an editorial that called for immigration reform that would secure the border and also provide the millions of people living in the shadows in fear of deportation a path to legal status and legal employment. We wrote: “Presented with the known facts at hand, we ask what would be the point of deporting Vizguerra? What would the United States of America gain from such a cruel, though legal, action? Would enforcement be worth the harm done to (four) innocent American children?”
Trump has failed to ever articulate a single answer to those questions because the answer of course is that there is no point of deporting Vizguerra, there is nothing for the U.S. to gain from this cruelty and the harm goes far beyond just her family.
The best case we can make against Vizguerra being permitted to remain in the United States is the simple fact that a judge ordered her removal and she disobeyed it before she was granted her first stay of deportation and then again in 2017 when she claimed sanctuary. As a society we cannot ignore judicial orders — the price we pay for that of course is the judge’s wrath as he doles out sentences for contempt of court.
We can’t see how Trump could make the argument that Vizguerra undermined the judicial system with a straight face, however, as he is now engaging in an orchestrated attempt to undermine the judicial branch, lashing out at judges he disagrees with, calling for their impeachment and ignoring their orders.
Undermining our judicial branch’s authority is a direct threat to the core of our republic — three co-equal branches of government working in tandem to preserve American’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
If Trump wants America to abide faithfully and without deviation to the courts, he must lead the way with his own actions first. Then we will be glad to have a conversation about whether or not the actions of those who sought sanctuary from judicial deportation orders pose a threat to America’s judicial order great enough to warrant their removal from this country.
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