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Jeanette Vizguerra, who made national news evading deportation in a church basement, is the latest activist to be taken into custody by federal immigration agents.
March 18, 2025, 6:29 p.m. ET
An undocumented woman in Denver who became a symbol of immigrant resistance during President Trump’s first term as she evaded deportation was arrested at work on Monday by federal immigration agents, her family and immigrant activists said.
Jeanette Vizguerra, 53, had been on her break at a Target store near Denver when immigration agents took her into custody, said Jordan Garcia, an immigrant-rights advocate with the American Friends Service Committee who has known Ms. Vizguerra for 15 years.
Recounting details of the arrest that Ms. Vizguerra had relayed to her family, Mr. Garcia said one of the agents told her, “We finally got you.”
Ms. Vizguerra drew national attention when, in early 2017, she packed her clothes and moved with her three youngest children into a church basement in Colorado, hoping that the sanctuary of a house of worship would protect her from Mr. Trump’s deportation plans. In 2021, she received a one-year stay of deportation from the Biden administration, but friends said Tuesday she was aware of her peril.
Her detention has already stirred a backlash from Colorado Democratic politicians and immigrant-rights supporters, who accused the Trump administration of trying to silence critics of its immigration crackdown.
Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver condemned Ms. Vizguerra’s arrest as a “Putin-style persecution of political dissidents” that had ensnared a working-class mother who had dedicated her life to helping other undocumented immigrants.
