Immigrant Activist, Currently Detained in Aurora, Wins Human Rights Award

Denver immigrant activist Jeanette Vizguerra has won the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award while incarcerated in an Aurora detention center, the Washington D.C.-based human rights organization announced today, May 15.

Vizguerra immigrated without documentation to Denver from Mexico City in 1997. She's best known for her attempt to avoid deportation by taking sanctuary from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a Denver church in 2017, during President Donald Trump's first term. A judge eventually granted a two-year stay against her deportation orders and allowed her to remain in the U.S. after an 86-day standoff with ICE at the Denver First Unitarian Church.

Her fight against Trump and ICE attracted national attention. While she was still in sanctuary at the church, Vizguerra was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2017.

She later returned to the First Unitarian Church for sanctuary in 2019 because the stay against her deportation orders expired. In 2020, she was again able to leave the church amid the COVID pandemic; one year later, former President Joe Biden promised to block any deportation orders against her.

Vizguerra lost her protection when President Trump returned to office earlier this year. The federal policy that prevents ICE from making arrests at churches — as well as courthouses and schools — has since been changed to allow agents to enter those sensitive areas. Trump is also in the middle of carrying out an aggressive federal deportation plan, which has brought three large ICE raids to Colorado.

On March 17, Vizguerra was arrested by ICE agents while she was on a lunch break during her shift at a Denver-area Target where she works. Her supporters and family responded with shock and outrage. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston called it "Putin-style persecution" and "political retribution."

ICE sent her to a detention center in Aurora, which is run by the GEO Group, an international private prison company. Protesters have since held vigils almost weekly outside of the facility every Monday to support Vizguerra and call for her release. A GoFundMe page for her legal defense and to support her children has raised more than $85,000 through individual donations.

“While detained in a detention center, I received the news that I had received this human rights award. I thank RFK Human Rights for this honor," Vizguerra said in a May 15 press release. "I work independently, using my own resources. With these resources, although limited, I believe I have made a difference in the movement for social justice. The government wants to silence my voice, but I will continue to sow rebellion until I reap freedom. This award is not only for me but for every person who has been involved in my life — especially my children and my immigrant community. I hope our voices are never silenced.”

Critics of Vizguerra and illegal immigration as a whole have argued against her right to stay in the country undocumented for nearly three decades. Former Denver ICE field director John Fabbricatore, a prominent local supporter of Trump's deportations, told media in late March that she's had "more than due process" and wrote on X that she should be removed because "she is a criminal, hates Trump, and is an open-borders, abolish-ICE advocate."

According to the RFK Human Rights organization, it picked Vizguerra and two others for the 42nd annual Human Rights Award because they showed "moral courage and willingness to act on their convictions - even at great personal risk."

The other two winners of the award were Maine Governor Janet Mills and former Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Elizabeth Oyer. 

Mills won because in April, she sued the federal government to restore "unlawfully withheld" funding for school nutrition programs that serve 172,000 children. The Trump administration settled and restored the funding in May, according to RFK Human Rights.

Meanwhile, Oyer was selected because the DOJ fired her in April for refusing to restore actor Mel Gibson's gun rights and then intimidated her against speaking about the incident to members of Congress, according to RFK Human Rights. 

The president of RFK Human Rights is Kerry Kennedy, daughter of assassinated politician and lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, and the sister of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the controversial head of the Department of Health and Human Services, picked by Trump. In the Thursday announcement of the awards, Kerry applauded the three winners for "taking a stand against unlawful executive orders and bolstering the moral strength of the Department of Justice to advocating for vulnerable immigrants."

"These women have chosen to stand up for their beliefs during a time when it is increasingly difficult to do so," Kennedy said. "I’m honored to recognize Governor Mills, Elizabeth Oyer, and Jeanette Vizguerra, and I hope that this award is a beacon of hope for others like them.”

Previous winners of the award include groups and individuals who have advocated for LGBTQ+ rights, indigenous people and environmental protection, with some coming from countries like Cameroon, Haiti and Guatemala. 

An award ceremony is planned to honor Mills, Oyer and Vizguerra, but Vizguerra is still fighting her deportation orders from her cell in the Aurora ICE detention center. ICE can't legally deport Vizguerra until she has a hearing for her immigration case. In late March, her lawyers were able to delay that hearing by arguing that ICE was denying Vizguerra's First Amendment right of free speech by detaining her, which forced the federal government to file a response within 21 days.

A new hearing date has not yet been set, so it's unclear if Vizguerra can attend the award ceremony on June 5 in Washington, D.C.