Colorado immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra released from detention, advocates say

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DENVER (AP) — A prominent Colorado immigration and labor activist was released Monday after spending nine months in immigration detention, supporters said.

Jeanette Vizguerra left an immigration detention center in suburban Denver a day after a judge ruled she should could post a $5,000 bond, according to the American Friends Service Committee, who has been working with Vizguerra’s lawyers and her family.

The group released photos of Vizguerra, a mother of four, standing with her daughter, son-in-law and grandson just outside the gate of the center in Aurora, Colorado.

Emails seeking comment from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned.

Vizguerra gained prominence after she took refuge in churches in Colorado to avoid deportation during the first Trump administration. She was arrested in the parking lot of the Denver-area Target store where she worked on March 17.

Vizguerra, who came to Colorado in 1997 from Mexico City, has been fighting deportation since 2009 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 actual number, according to a 2019 lawsuit she brought against ICE. Vizguerra did not know the number belonged to someone else at the time, it said.

Vizguerra’s lawyers have said ICE was attempting to deport her based on an order that was never valid and challenged her detention in federal court.

A federal judge recently ordered that a bond hearing be held in immigration court to determine whether Vizguerra should be continue to be held in detention facility in suburban Denver as her immigration case plays out.

In a statement released by the American Friends Service Committee, Vizguerra thanked her lawyers, who have been mostly working on her case for free.

"They understand that this case is bigger than me. This fight is about the constitutional rights we all share, human rights and dignity for all people,” she said.