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Federal judge to hold hearing on detention of immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra

By Michael Karlik March 20, 2025 | updated 4 months ago

A federal judge on Wednesday scheduled a hearing for next week on the petition filed by prominent Denver immigration advocate Jeanette Vizguerra, who authorities took into custody this week.

Vizguerra is a citizen of Mexico who gained attention during the first Trump administration for speaking out about immigration reform and seeking sanctuary from deportation in multiple Denver churches. In 2017, Time magazine named her one of its 100 most influential people of the year.

On March 18, Vizguerra’s lawyers filed a petition for habeas corpus in Colorado’s federal trial court on her behalf, alleging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained her in violation of her right to due process at the Aurora ICE facility, which is privately operated by the GEO Group.

The next day, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang ordered the defendants — including the Aurora center’s warden, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi — to respond to Vizguerra’s petition by Monday. Wang also scheduled a hearing for March 28 to hear arguments in the case.

Vizguerra’s petition was originally assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney, an appointee of Joe Biden. However, she quickly issued an order citing the requirement that a judge “disqualify herself in certain circumstances in which her impartiality might be reasonably questioned.” Sweeney then recused from the case without elaboration.

The court then reassigned the case to U.S. District Court Senior Judge Robert E. Blackburn, a George W. Bush appointee, who appears to have exercised his prerogative as a semi-retired senior judge to turn down the assignment. Vizguerra’s case finally landed before Wang, a Biden appointee.

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Nominee to be United States District Judge for the District of Colorado Nina Nin-Yuen Wang, testifies before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington U.S., May 25, 2022.

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

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Nominee to be United States District Judge for the District of Colorado Nina Nin-Yuen Wang, testifies before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington U.S., May 25, 2022.



REUTERS/Joshua Roberts


Vizguerra’s lawyers allege the due process violation stems from the intricacies of immigration law, in which Vizguerra left the U.S. in 2012 while she was appealing her deportation order. Upon reentry in 2013, ICE officials detained Vizguerra and presented her with a form reinstating the prior deportation order. However, they allegedly did not follow the proper process for doing so, as Vizguerra’s previous voluntary departure affected the status of the removal order.

“The procedural error was not immaterial,” wrote lawyers for Vizguerra, who is proceeding by the name Vizguerra-Ramirez in court. “Had Ms. Vizguerra-Ramirez been notified of the possibility of a reinstatement order, she could have alerted officials to the fact that she did not have a prior removal order. Instead, she had a grant of voluntary departure that was issued in lieu of a removal order, and by leaving the U.S. while her appeal was pending, she necessarily complied with the order’s departure deadline.”

The petition is seeking Vizguerra’s release from custody.

Since her detention, multiple Democratic elected officials have issued statements in support of Vizguerra. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston deemed it “Putin-style persecution of political dissidents.” U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, Jason Crow and Brittany Pettersen accused the Trump administration of “going after mothers with U.S.-born children and immigrant advocates, like Ms. Vizguerra.”

ICE, meanwhile, characterized Vizguerra as a “convicted criminal alien from Mexico who has a final order of deportation issued by a federal immigration judge” and who “has received legal due process in US immigration court.”

The case is Vizguerra-Ramirez v. Choate et al.

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Michael Karlik

Reporter

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