United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has confirmed it detained and plans to deport Jeanette Vizguerra, a prominent immigration activist who has drawn attention to the plight of undocumented people in the country.
Immigration advocates, lawmakers and human rights groups have decried the move, pointing to the mother of four’s deep ties to the Colorado community where she has lived for 30 years.
The arrest appears to be the first time US authorities have targeted a prominent immigration activist for deportation during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Supporters say Vizguerra’s detention is aimed at silencing dissent. It comes amid a wider deportation push by the Trump administration, which has rolled back enforcement protections and invoked an 18th-century law in an effort to eject undocumented people from the US.
In a social media post on Wednesday, ICE’s bureau in Denver, Colorado, justified Vizguerra’s arrest by pointing to her past convictions.
She has a 2009 misdemeanour for using a forged Social Security number to find work, as well as a second misdemeanour from 2013 when she briefly returned home to Mexico to visit her dying mother. She was convicted at the time of illegal entry.
“She will remain in ICE custody until her removal from the United States,” ICE said in the post.
However, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, questions whether Vizguerra’s meagre arrest record warrants such treatment.
He acknowledged that she “has a few low-level offenses as a result of her being undocumented”. “But she’s no dangerous radical. That’s just ridiculous,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
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