Chanukah vigil at Aurora Detention Center calls for immigrant justice and freedom for Jeanette Vizguerra, December 2025 Jennifer Piper / AFSC
AURORA, CO (December 18, 2025) – After nine months in immigration detention, longtime Colorado resident and nationally recognized immigration advocate Jeanette Vizguerra-Ramirez may finally be released. Yesterday, a federal judge ordered that she receive a prompt bond hearing after concluding that her continued immigration detention violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
When Laura Lichter, lead attorney, tried to reach her to share the news, Jeanette was in the detention center yard in a prayer circle with other women. They were praying for the release of each of them before Christmas and the New Year. “I was praying that God would help me continue to believe and to have faith when a guard whispered in my ear that my lawyer had called and that I needed to call her back. The bond hearing is an answer to my prayer,” she said. Read Jeanette’s full statement here.
Jeanette rose to national prominence as an activist during the first Trump Administration, when her and her family took sanctuary in the First Unitarian Church in Denver. In 2017, she was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people. After receiving a stay of deportation and leaving sanctuary, Jeanette continued to be a tireless leader in immigrant rights and social justice movements. On March 17, ICE agents re-arrested her at her workplace and she has been held at a for-profit detention center ever since.
U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang issued a detailed 38-page ruling holding that Ms. Vizguerra-Ramirez’s detention has become unreasonably prolonged and may not continue without a constitutionally adequate bond hearing before an immigration judge. The Court ordered that the bond hearing take place within seven days, on or before December 24, putting the burden on ICE to justify her continued detention or face further hearings before Judge Wang.
On the night of the ruling, activists held a candlelight vigil marking the fourth night of Chanukah outside the GEO ICE Detention Center in Aurora, Colorado where Jeanette is being held. The vigil was sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace and joined by members of the Colorado Jewish community and allies.
Vizguerra-Ramirez is represented in these proceedings by a legal team that includes Mark Barr and Laura Lichter, Lichter Immigration, Attorneys Laura Lunn and Shira Hereld, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) and the University of Denver Sturm College of Law Immigration Law & Policy Clinic, under the direction of Professor Elizabeth Jordan and Clinical Teaching Fellow Jack Hathaway, with student attorneys Candace Garza and Shannon Long.
Laura Lichter, lead attorney: “This decision makes clear that immigration detention is not a constitutional blind spot. ICE cannot warehouse someone for months and then claim no court can ask why. When detention is prolonged or raises serious First Amendment concerns, courts have both authority and an obligation to intervene. Taking someone’s liberty requires justification, and that justification must withstand constitutional scrutiny. This hard-fought result reflects the work of a largely pro bono legal team that refused to accept the idea that Ms. Vizguerra-Ramirez’s detention should escape judicial review. It shows what is possible when lawyers, advocacy groups, and law clinics commit their time and expertise to constitutional accountability.”
Tania, Jeanette’s eldest daughter, shared a statement: “As we get ready to fight the next phase, we want to thank everyone who has contributed and been a part of making this moment possible. We continue to request the community’s support of our legal team through our gofundme. The cutting edge work they have done towards winning my mom’s freedom and pushing back on this administration’s violations of her rights will benefit many other advocates for peace and justice, who the administration continues to target.
After 9 months, our family has been left with a huge hole where my mom, Jeanette Vizguerra, has always been. While we are strong like my mom, and will never give up, more than anything I never thought that we'd face Christmas and New Year's without my mom while my sister Luna is serving in the armed forces.
Today we finally take a step forward together. Argument after strong argument has been made by our legal team - about her first amendment rights being violated, about her strong ties to community and how much my younger siblings need my mom, about her eligibility for bond due and the fact that she now also qualifies for deferred action and parole.
I am proud of this community for not giving up, for showing the same dedication and fight as my mom. Nine months of weekly vigils and actions, traveling to DC and meeting with congress people, multiple awards and news stories. You have helped the world know my mom's story and you have contributed to this moment!”
Laura Lunn, Director of Advocacy and Litigation with the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network: "Today's ruling re-energizes us at RMIAN in our mission to defend our community's legal rights and access to justice, despite ICE's lawlessness. It is a bold call to action to everyone advocating on the front lines: We will not stop until all of us are free."
Jennifer Piper, Co-Director of the Colorado office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC): “We will continue to stand with Ms. Vizugerra, to insist our community is stronger with immigrants and to defend one another’s human rights. Jeanette has paid a terrific price in deprivation of her freedom for the simple act of speaking her conscience, of speaking truth to power, over many years. The Trump Administration targets Jeanette to silence all of us, to convince us to look the other way as they carry out deep harm - separating loved ones and neighbors, making a mockery of the immigration system’s limited due process and shredding the constitution as they target people based on skin color, perceived working class status or language. But our communities have stood up every week at vigils, on the streets through rapid response and at court watch.
ICE has tried, time and again, to paint Ms. Vizguerra’s story with a sinister brush. They will try to defame Jeanette for taking actions that any of us who love our families would take - for working under a fake name to support her family or for traveling to her mother’s death bed and returning to her babies here in the United States. The only crime she is guilty of is deep love – for family, for the highest ideals of this country and for her community. Like Jeanette, we will never be silent, and we will continue to work to wrest our nation’s resources away from militarism, death and detention towards supporting health, connection and peace with justice for everyone.”
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The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) promotes a world free of violence, inequality, and oppression. Guided by the Quaker belief in the divine Light within each person, we nurture the seeds of change and the respect for human life to fundamentally transform our societies and institutions. We work with people and partners worldwide, of all faiths and backgrounds, to meet urgent community needs, challenge injustice, and build peace.