We woke up this morning to news that a well-known local immigrant rights activist, named by TIME Magazine as one of America’s 100 most influential figures when she first made headlines early in Donald Trump’s first administration, has been arrested by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Aurora–reportedly acting without a deportation order. Morgan Whitley reports for FOX 31:
Community members gathered outside the Aurora Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility after a well-known immigration activist was reportedly taken into custody.
According to the American Friends Services Committee, a nonprofit that supports immigrant rights, Jeanette Vizguerra was taken into custody by ICE on Monday.
The AFSC said “ICE acted without a valid deportation order and without notifying Ms. Vizguerra or her lawyers” when she was taken into custody Monday. The rights group said in a Tuesday press release that it appears ICE is “readying to possibly deport her even though the agency knows they don’t have a valid deportation order.”
Jeanette Vizguerra’s arrest drew swift condemnation this morning from both of Colorado’s U.S. Senators:
The legally dubious arrest of Vizguerra changes the debate over the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda in important ways. Represented up until now as an operation targeting violent migrant gang members and other undocumented immigrants who turned to crime in the United States, Vizguerra defies all of those tropes as a mother and community leader who has been the country for decades–seemingly exactly who Rep. Gabe Evans was talking about when he said the crackdown on undocumented immigrants should focus on “gangsters, not grandmas.”
But as Kevin Beaty writes for Denverite, Vizguerra’s lack of conformity to the criminal stereotype of immigrants promoted by Trump is what made her a target eight years ago:
She was named one of Time Magazine’s “100 most influential people” in April 2017. Actress America Ferrera wrote her blurb on the list.
“Jeanette moved to the U.S. to be a janitor, working as an outspoken union organizer and building her own company before becoming an advocate for immigration reform — a bold and risky thing for an undocumented immigrant,” Ferrera wrote at the time…
When she took sanctuary in February 2017, Hans Meyer, her attorney at the time, said her resistance was the result of “the brutality and the stupidity of Trump’s immigration enforcement plans.”
Then-U.S. Rep. Jared Polis joined Vizguerra’s supporters in calling for a reprieve in her case. At the time, he said she was being targeted by a “rogue ICE agent” with a personal vendetta against her.
Vizguerra’s arrest yesterday appears to be the long-awaited resolution to said vendetta–no longer in the personal case of the ICE assistant local office director who went after Vizguerra in 2017 and has since retired, but the Trump administration itself embarrassed by the national attention focused on the case all those years ago. The lack of due process in Vizguerra’s arrest is no oversight, but apparently now the administration’s explicit policy of taking irreversible action first and letting the courts sort out later if the action was legal–and even then with no guarantee the administration will abide by a court’s ruling.
With this arrest, the moral foundations of Trump’s immigration crackdown have been undermined. The only purposes served are political. And the only people happy about it are those who desired revenge against Vizguerra for making Trump look bad all those years ago. That is, needless to say, a small number of people.
For the rest of America, this broken promise is how opinion begins to flip.
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And Trump's response to the court's attempt at upholding the rule of law?
But at least Chief Justice Roberts is attempting to corral the loose horses after personally leaving the barn door wide open.
Which is a greater threat to our country, impeachment proceedings or illegal deportations? I wish Trump's allies in Congress would honor his request. Impeach judges that rule against Trump. There will be hearings, evidence, and no chance of a 2/3 vote in the Senate. His idiocy and the basic lawlessness of his actions will be laid bare. On the other hand, even if Ms. Vizguerra gets her day in court, the message has been sent. Stand up to Trump and you may find yourself in an El Salvdoran prison. You will be disappeared. There has been reasonable debate as to whether Trump was the worst president ever, or just one of the worst (we see you Andrew Johnson). He is really trying to end the debate.
Trump with advice from Stephen Miller is probably hoping that protests against their dictatorial rule will turn violent, so they can invoke the Insurrection Act, or better, declare Martial Law and dispense entirely with the rule of law and pesky judges.
Bruising Trump's fee-fees would become a felony.
Spot on!
AP article I read said there were Representatives moving to impeach 3 different judges who had ruled against something the Trump Mad!-ministration did.
Guess we'll see just how far the GOP's House conference will go to curry favor with the *resident.
James Buchanan is the only president who rivals trump in incompetence, but trump is the big winner in torching the constitution.
Agree. Though Andrew Johnson is definitely in the mix w/ this who conversation as well.
Ms. Vizguerra's case may signal something more sinister from Trump and his administration. They may be aiming at decapitating the leadership of the immigrant organizations. That's what dictators do. They attempt to remove leadership figures in organizations that oppose their policies. If successful, an organization may become disoriented or disintegrate unless there is a new person who can step in and lead the organization. We should carefully watch if other immigrant leaders are detained by ICE.
Trump's threats against judges is part and parcel of his dictatorial instincts. He wants anyone who stands in his way to be removed from positions of authority. His press secretary's questioning the validity of the pardons that Biden gave the members of the January 6th Committee represents more than vengence. Its an act of intimidation toward those who have knowledge about what he did and failed to do that day. He is simply a monster in a golf shirt.
No, it's a test. It's a test to see whether there is enough public protest to bother the decision-makers. People did protest outside the GEO facility in Aurora today.
I think it will take a general strike, or bringing business and traffic to a complete standstill, to make those cold hearts skip a beat.
Yes, it will take much more to stop them, if they can be stopped.