Community members attend a vigil for Denver immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra, on March 18, 2025, at the ICE detention facility in Aurora, where Vizguerra was believed to have been held. (Robert Davis for Colorado Newsline)
Nearly 100 community members and activists braved sleeting rain and a heavy police presence Tuesday to hold a brief vigil for Jeanette Vizguerra, one of Colorado’s most well known immigration activists, who was detained by federal immigration authorities at her job.
The vigil was held on the south side of the privately-operated Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Aurora, where advocates believe Vizguerra is being housed. It included chants of “Free Jeanette” and “Si se puede (yes we can)” as well as brief statements from two of Vizguerra’s four children.
“I want my mom back,” Luna Baez, one of Vizguerra’s children, said during the vigil. “I don’t like being at home without her there.”
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As advocates gathered for the vigil, one attendee began burning copal resin incense in a traditional resin burner underneath a tree where she and Vizguerra used to pray for other individuals who were detained in the facility. ICE guards watched from inside the facility as smoke appeared from the burner. The Denver metro area was under a “red flag warning” Tuesday because of dry weather and strong winds.
Shortly after the incense began burning, the Aurora fire fighters and two police officers arrived. The firefighters asked the attendee to put out the incense, and she complied. The police officers detained the woman, causing protesters to gather around their vehicles. About a dozen police officers arrived as backup, some of whom drove unmarked cars while others carried riot weapons. The police officers dispersed the attendees from the front of the building. The detained protester was later released without being charged.
Vigil attendees spoke about Vizguerra’s impact on the community. The Denver resident is a mother of four and a local labor organizer with the Service Employees International Union, and she volunteered at her kids’ schools and several community organizations. Speakers speculated that Vizguerra’s visibility within the immigrant community was the reason she was targeted. She was detained Monday as she took a break during a shift at Target.
“She sees the importance of fighting for the liberation of all people,” Jordan Garcia, the program director for Coloradans For Immigrant Rights, said during the vigil. “She never stops fighting.”
During his first weeks in office, President Donald Trump emphasized that he plans to deport violent criminals and gang members “at a level nobody has ever seen before.” Those efforts included labeling the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, or TdA, as a foreign terrorist organization, which gave his administration more legal avenues to remove them from the country. However, Trump’s deportation measures have become ensnared in legal challenges.
Vizguerra’s family said she has continuously sought a path to citizenship since she entered the country. She rose to prominence in 2017 when she defied Trump’s initial immigration crackdown by seeking refuge in a Denver-area church. Time Magazine named her one of the most influential people in the country that year because of her efforts.
Vizguerra’s arrest earned widespread condemnation from Democratic lawmakers across Colorado.
Gov. Jared Polis has known Vizguerra, who is originally from Mexico, for several years. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2017, Polis authored a private bill that gave Vizguerra a two-year stay of deportation while she worked to become a permanent resident. U.S. Sen. Michael Bennett of Colorado authored a corresponding private bill at the time as well. Rep. Joe Neguse repeated those efforts in 2019.
Polis underscored that Vizguerra does not have a history of violence, which is one of the metrics the Trump administration has claimed to focus on for deportations. He also called on the administration to be more transparent about the operations.
“I continue to urge President Trump and ICE to focus their actions on violent offenders and be more transparent with states they are operating in, including being transparent about the cost and impact of detentions, raids, and the cost to taxpayers,” Polis said in a statement. “The state has not seen any transparent accounting of ICE operations in our state and has not been notified beyond press reports of the apprehension of Ms. Vizguerra.”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston also condemned Vizguerra’s arrest as a “Soviet-style persecution of political dissidents.”
“This is not something that makes our community safer,” Johnston said. “In my mind, this makes our community lawless.”
In early February, ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies conducted operations in at least four locations in Denver and Aurora as part of Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda in Colorado. In January, the DEA conducted a raid of what it said was a TdA party and detained 41 people alleged to be in the country unlawfully.
Federal authorities have released very little information about the people they have detained in Colorado during immigration enforcement activities.
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