CHAPTER FIVE
SANCTUARY
Jeanette Vizguerra, forty-five
Mexico City/Denver, Colorado
IN HIS FIFTH DAY as president of the United States, Donald Trump signed an executive order to strengthen the application of immigration laws, and economically sanction city governments that failed to “employ all lawful means” to remove “aliens who had no right to be in the United States.” This order was meant to punish so-called sanctuary cities. Although the order was blocked by a judge four months later, Trump succeeded in adding “sanctuary” to a growing list of polarizing issues in his five-day-old administration.
The sanctuary movement began in the United States over three decades ago. During the civil wars in Central America in the 1980s, thousands of Guatemalans and Salvadorans came to the United States to save their own lives. But they were not granted refugee status or asylum by the government. In response to their plight, an interreligious group came together to open the doors of its houses of worship and offer a safe haven for an indefinite time to people facing deportation, under the guise of “sanctuary.” Those taking refuge inside the churches had the congregations’ support.
Two decades later, in the wake of massive protests against anti-immigrant initiatives in 2006, the movement resurfaced. One of the recent cases is that of Jeanette Vizguerra, an undocumented immigrant who entered a church in Denver, Colorado, in February 2017 to avoid deportation. On April 20, after sixty-four days in sanctuary, Jeanette got a phone call: it was Time magazine, letting her know she had been named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world.
Donald Trump was also on the list.
Jeanette Vizguerra has lived in the United States for twenty years. She and her family left Mexico City in 2007, fearing for their safety. Her husband, Salvador, was a driver for a public transportation company, and he had been the victim of two “express” kidnappings—where an immediate ransom is demanded for the victim’s release, usually withdrawn from an ATM. He had been lucky, some of her husband’s coworkers told him, because another driver had also been kidnapped and killed. When Salvador was kidnapped for a third time and survived, they decided to go to the United States. It was September, and Jeanette still had one semester to go before she would earn her degree in psychology.
Salvador went first, followed by Jeanette and their seven-year-old daughter three months later. They tried to cross the border near Las Cruces, New Mexico. Jeanette was detained there, and was back in Mexico that very day. Her daughter managed to keep going, along with the family friends who traveled with them. Fifteen days later, Jeanette tried to cross again, and this time she made it. On Christmas Day, the family was back together, ready to settle in Denver.
Jeanette told me she and her husband both got jobs. He worked as a manager for a moving company, and she did whatever work she could get. “Like everyone when they come here, it’s the only way, with both working at whatever you can find.”
I talked to Jeanette over the phone in late May 2017, twelve days after she returned home, after spending eighty-six days in sanctuary. As soon as she got out, Jeanette went back to her usual activities, including her activist work getting the word out about campaigns defending people who have been arrested by ICE and have valid arguments for why they should not be deported: they have never been convicted of a serious crime, they have lived in the country for many years, or they have small children who would suffer if the family were separated. Jeanette already had several years of experience as an activist even before she got involved with this issue, going back almost as long as she had been in the United States.
Her first job in the US was working for a cleaning company, an industry that employs many recent arrivals to the country. It did not take long for her to notice the injustices and abuses taking place in the company especially against workers without a work permit or regularized immigration status. She took it upon herself to review worker contracts and let other employees know whenever she discovered instances of wage theft or unfair firings.
Just seven months later, Jeanette was working at a local chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the largest labor unions in the country. During her five-year tenure there, Jeanette specialized in defending civil rights and labor rights. She created a network of contacts across the whole country, and built alliances with other pro-immigrant social justice organizations. When she left the SEIU, she went to work at Rights for All People, a network of grassroots organizations working on a range of social justice issues including immigrant and worker rights. Jeanette worked there for thirteen years. In that time, she and her husband started their own cleaning company, bought a home, and had three more children. But they still had no way open to them to legalize their immigration status.
Then, on January 20, 2009, as Barack Obama began the first of two terms, Jeanette was pulled over for a minor traffic violation. She was found to be using a false Social Security number, and was taken to an immigrant detention center. For the next thirty-four days, Jeanette experienced firsthand what she had heard goes on inside those detention centers. She says the media was not covering what goes on in immigration detention at all at the time: the injustices, the mistreatment, the lack of medical attention, and how the suffering of people like her became a profitable business for a publicly traded corporation that derives its earnings from locking people up. The center where she was held in Colorado is managed by GEO Group, one of the largest private prison companies in the nation, which is awarded government contracts to operate them. For every day an immigrant is held in one of their detention centers, GEO receives federal taxpayer money.
From inside, Jeanette could see what happened in there. She tells me, “I thought I had to do something, and that’s when I decided to fight my case, and to do it publicly. I started talking about the injustices in the detention center, and everything you have to go through in there, and about the unfair laws that make you enter the system [Jeanette refers to immigrant detention centers as “the system”], and it really changes your life dramatically.”
As part of the agreement with the prosecution for her release, Jeanette entered a guilty plea for using false documents. As a result of that plea, in 2011 she was issued an order of deportation. Then the appeals process began, which would go on for several years. It also marked the beginning of Jeanette’s mission to share her story as widely as possible.
Jeanette was the first person in Colorado to make her detention and deportation story public. She tells me the English-language media never covered those cases, but she went out to speak at forums, in churches, and in schools. “I tried to raise people’s consciousness, and they were sympathetic. They understood this was something that needed to be fought, that we could demand that laws like 287(g) [known as Secure Communities, an agreement between local and federal authorities stipulating that the former will perform immigration enforcement duties—an approach rejected and resisted by sanctuary cities] be repealed because they are restrictive and unnecessary; we already had secure communities.”
Thanks to her lawyer’s efforts, Jeanette was released from detention during the appeals process, on the condition that she attend regular check-in appointments with immigration authorities—these are generally scheduled every three months, every six months, or even once a year. At each check-in, the suspension of deportation was extended for the full period until the next scheduled appointment.
Jeanette showed up on time for every appointment. But in 2013, she got word from Mexico City that her mother was stricken with cancer. Jeanette was distraught. She faced the agonizing circumstance that sooner or later all undocumented immigrants in the United States face: a sick or dying mother, father, or sister needs them back home. What to do? Travel to be with them, even though returning to the US may not be possible? Find a “coyote” again, risk your life again, take the chance of being caught and put in detention again, leaving your own family behind in the US, not knowing for sure if you will ever see them again?
Jeanette made her decision. She would go to visit her mother in Mexico and come back to the US to be with her children however she could. But it was too late—Jeanette’s mother died before she arrived, and Jeanette was only able to see her for the last time in a casket at the wake. The trip came at a very high price. Because she had left the country during her appeals process, the appeal was canceled. Under US immigration policy, anyone with an open appeal has to remain within US territory until it is completed, at a place where they can be located, for the duration of the process. This is part of the rationale for the check-in appointments. If Jeanette had managed to cross the border north undetected, the authorities might never have even known about her trip outside the country. But things did not go according to plan. When she tried to cross back into the US, Jeanette was arrested in El Paso, Texas, and transferred to a detention center in Denver, Colorado.
The battle to stay in the country started all over again. Drawing on resources she knew well from her years as an activist, and with her lawyer’s support, Jeanette asked Colorado representatives in Congress to introduce a legislative initiative known as a “private bill,” which aims to adjust the immigration status of a private individual or individuals, generally making an exception to a rule. Some private bills seek to suspend deportation orders on humanitarian grounds. This strategy worked, and Jeanette’s deportation order was suspended for five months. After that, she was granted four extensions of the suspension, based on Jeanette’s health and her children’s emotional state. When a fifth extension was denied, Jeanette decided to take refuge in sanctuary.
Midway through our conversation, Jeanette seems a bit more relaxed. She tells me how, after her second stint in detention in 2013, she decided to start up the sanctuary movement in Denver. Since her case was not in court, Jeanette says she realized that she had to do something. There were sanctuary movements in other cities, so they could certainly build one right there in Denver. “I talked with my pastor, and asked her to put me in touch with the most progressive ministers and pastors,” Jeanette said. “I explained the circumstances; she thought it was a good idea, and I started looking for people, for churches. For nine months, I spent every weekend going around with my children to talk to conservative churchgoers, to help them lose their prejudices and break taboos. I explained what creating a sanctuary meant; it’s not just going to church and saying ‘Let me in.’ There are financial needs; there is a lot of preparation that needs to be done.”
For nine months, Jeanette built a support network and worked on adapting a physical space as a shelter in the basement of her church, the First Unitarian Church of Denver—whose congregation of four hundred unanimously approved the project. In that time, she saw how the political climate in the US changed as Donald Trump was elected president and took office.
On February 8, 2017, Guadalupe García de Rayos, a Mexican woman who had lived in Arizona for over twenty years, became the first person to be deported by the Trump administration. Guadalupe’s case was very similar to Jeanette’s: Guadalupe had also had to appear regularly for check-in appointments with immigration authorities. But that day, when she arrived, ICE agents were already there waiting to arrest and deport her, even though Guadalupe had followed the protocol and the rules.
When Jeanette found out about Guadalupe, she made a decision. She was not going to give them the opportunity to make of her the next target for deportation. When the day of her next scheduled check-in came around, on February 15, she decided not to go. “I had the feeling I was going to be arrested. That’s what was going to happen. I asked my lawyer to go for me and ask if they had the approval notice for my case [another deportation suspension], because they had been evaluating it for eighty-nine days. It was a case they knew well for eight years by then, and I kept adding more evidence in my favor to it.”
Hans Meyer, Jeanette’s lawyer, and Ann Dunlap, her pastor, agreed to go to the immigration office as her representatives. If the document extending her deportation suspension was ready, then Jeanette would go to sign it. If it wasn’t ready, she knew what she had to do.
As she waited for the news at home, where some reporters and cameramen familiar with her story were waiting with her, Jeanette got a text message from Dunlap: “Do not come here.” Later Meyer called her to let her know the extension of the deportation suspension had been denied. A video shared on social media by Donie O’Sullivan, a producer for CNN, shows Jeanette breaking down in tears as she hears the news, while two of her daughters try to comfort her. In a press release, Jeanette said she knew she might have to spend all four years of Trump’s term in sanctuary.
The basement space at First Unitarian that Jeanette had helped set up had already been occupied by Arturo Hernández García, another member of the community who was the first to benefit from Jeanette’s initiative. Hernández García spent a few weeks in sanctuary, and was able to leave because his order of deportation was suspended. Jeanette’s plan had worked. When her time came, everything was ready. Jeanette went into the church, spoke with the person in charge of communications, and said to let everyone know she was entering the church, and her reasons for doing so. Members of the press started to arrive within minutes. Her three months in sanctuary had begun.1
In the spring of 2006, large-scale protests took place in major cities including Chicago, New York, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, with hundreds of thousands marching through the streets, demanding respect for immigrant rights and urging Congress to pass immigration reform. This massive reaction, bringing out numbers of people never seen before—surpassed only by the Women’s March, which took place in cities across the country the day after Trump’s inauguration—was sparked by the December 2005 passage in the House of Representatives of the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, also known as the Sensenbrenner Bill, after the Republican congressman from Wisconsin who introduced it, Jim Sensenbrenner.2 The bill did not pass the Senate, but it did reignite the pro-immigrant movement, while also inspiring a number of anti-immigrant legislative initiatives on the state level in the following years—the “Arizona Law” and the “Alabama Law,” for example, which made it illegal to hire, rent a space, provide a service, or give aid of any kind to undocumented immigrants. It also reactivated the sanctuary movement through new interreligious coalitions that announced the doors of their houses of worship were open, just as they had been in the 1980s. Cases like that of Elvira Arellano, an undocumented immigrant originally from Michoacán, Mexico, who remained in sanctuary in a Chicago church for an entire year, kept appearing in national and international media.
Although the whereabouts of immigrants in sanctuary is publicly known, immigration authorities have not yet dared to enter a church by force to remove someone and have them deported. This policy was reaffirmed in the document known as the Morton Memo, sent out in 2011 by the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton, instructing immigration agents to follow the guidelines established by the Obama administration and prioritize the arrest of criminals or people who posed a national security risk. The memo advised agents to avoid “sensitive” places, including churches, hospitals, and schools.3
As we know, in spite of Donald Trump’s openly anti-immigrant rhetoric, his predecessor in the White House earned the distinction of being responsible for more deportations than any other president in US history. Barack Obama closed out his eight years in office with over three million deportations to his credit,4 and of those, two million were Mexicans.5 The difference is that under the Obama administration, there still existed the possibility of a negotiated deal on immigration reform, with the sanctuary movement functioning as a parallel strategy. Under the Trump administration, for some, sanctuary is the only option.
This could help explain the rise in the number of faith organizations that have declared themselves as sanctuary. In 2014, 250 congregations, including synagogues, had joined the movement. After the immigration raids of January 2016, that number grew to 400 congregations.6 By November of that year, when Trump won the presidential election, the figure had doubled, to 800. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) website still characterizes houses of worship as sensitive locations, but people working with the undocumented community see no reason to believe this policy could not change under the Trump administration.
It is hard to calculate the number of undocumented people actually living in sanctuary at any given time, partly because many of them want to keep their cases as private as possible, out of fear of deportation. Generally, the ones who are vocal and public about their cases tend to be people who have been involved with activism for many years, like Jeanette.
In some of the so-called sanctuary cities, local police officers, responsible for maintaining order, or sheriff’s officers, who operate in counties, refuse to arrest people simply because of their immigration status.
According to law, federal agents should seek the support of local police to make arrests in cases where immigration rules have been violated; but the law does not require local officers to arrest undocumented immigrants solely because their federal counterparts request it, unless a crime has been or may have been committed in their local jurisdiction. When cases on this issue have reached federal courts, judges have ruled that complying with a federal request is at the discretion of local agencies.
The main reason police or sheriff’s officers in various states refuse to cooperate with Secure Communities, say many politicians and activists, is that if any interaction with the police may result in a deportation, undocumented communities will be even more marginalized and isolated than they already are. Many undocumented immigrants fear that coming into contact with law enforcement will mean their immigration status will be discovered and they could be arrested and deported. As a result, when they are victims of or witnesses to a crime, such as robbery, assault, extortion, workplace abuse, and domestic or gender-based violence, they may be reluctant to come forward or press charges. This generates a cycle of constant vulnerability.
Compounding the fears based on immigration status is the fact that in the United States, as demonstrated by statistical data, ethnic minorities, especially African Americans and Latinos, are arrested at higher rates and receive more severe sentences than a comparable proportion of whites committing the same levels of crimes.7 “Racial profiling,” the practice of stopping someone solely based on their physical appearance, has been denounced for years by human rights and activist organizations. One well-known experiment, in which subjects see a white man trying to open a car door in a parking lot with a coat hanger and a black man doing the same, showed that many assumed the white man lost his keys and that the black man was trying to steal the car.8
For years, state and local governments have launched campaigns to counter this perception and incentivize racial and ethnic minorities to come forward when they have been victims of crimes, under the premise that no one has to ask about a victim’s immigration status or criminal record when a crime is reported or in order to press charges. In cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, which have openly declared themselves sanctuary cities, police departments conduct frequent training sessions with the aim of building trust in law enforcement among undocumented communities. If those police in sanctuary cities signed on to the Secure Communities program, all the gains they have made gaining confidence would instantly erode.
Trump’s proposal to freeze federal funding for sanctuary cities was blocked in court—like some of his other executive orders—because, based on a previous Supreme Court ruling, such a measure would only be justified when it represents a “federal interest” greater than the issue at hand. Cities, counties, and states with sanctuary policies receive federal money from dozens of departments and administrations, but most of those agencies have nothing to do with immigration control. Also, federal funding does not necessarily cover a significant amount of a city’s budget. For example, in New York City, federal funds represent only 10 percent of the city’s budget, which was $80 billion in 2015.
An analysis by the Washington Post found that many counties with sanctuary policies receive very little or almost no funds from federal Justice Department programs, which could constitute a “federal interest” warranting the withholding of resources to those counties: of the $165 million allocated from the Justice Department, only $18 million go to jurisdictions with noncooperation policies with immigration authorities.9
Some cities and counties have implemented policies that go further than refusing to arrest undocumented immigrants solely because of their immigration status. California has authorized issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented people and offers interpretation services in several languages at local government offices. The District of Columbia recently set up a legal defense fund for undocumented immigrants; deportation proceedings take place in civil court instead of criminal court, facilitating the defendant’s access to a defense attorney, which is not a consideration in immigration cases in criminal court.
In the First Unitarian Church basement, as the days passed, the yellow walls gradually became covered over with posters activists had made to keep up Jeanette’s spirits, and with children’s drawings from the times her children and grandchildren came to visit. Photos taken of the living space there over the course of Jeanette’s three months in sanctuary show notebooks and colored pencils for drawing, a microwave, cleaning products, a small space heater, and a rosary on the wall.
In an interview with a television reporter, Jeanette, in tears, explains her reasons for voluntarily entering the church: “My kids are my life; my family is my life. No es my country, pero es my house, the house of my kids, and the country of my kids. I’m living more years here than in my country.”
When Jeanette arrived in the United States, her daughter Tania was seven years old. Now she is twenty-seven and a beneficiary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the program of temporary protection implemented in 2012 by Barack Obama, for young people who arrived in the country undocumented as minors. Jeanette’s other three children are US citizens: Luna, thirteen; Roberto, ten; and Zury, six. She also has three grandchildren.
“I think I’ve done a good job with them,” Jeanette says modestly but firmly when we talk about her kids. In almost every interview of her that I’ve watched or listened to, Jeanette’s voice breaks a little when the subject turns to her children. This time is no exception. She explains that her studies in psychology helped her to understand it’s important to be honest with children about what’s happening. It’s a mistake to think they won’t understand just because they’re children. “They have all been activists right along with me; all four understand how things are and why we have to fight. When I decided I would go into sanctuary, my children told me they would be my voice on the outside.”
That could have been just a nice thing to say, but Jeanette’s children really did speak out on her behalf. On April 13, 2017, while Jeanette was in the church basement, her children traveled to Washington, DC, as part of the “Caravana de niños,” or Kids Caravan, a national action where dozens of children of undocumented parents, or parents who have been deported or have orders of deportation, tried to soften Trump’s heart and affirm their right to have their parents with them in the country of their birth.10
Jeanette tells me that children who, along with their families, experience the fight to defend their family’s rights and try to change the laws are affected too. “They grow up before their time, their intellectual development is not the same as other children’s; they use language different from a typical child. My son Roberto says he’s thinking about being the president, because these unfair laws have to change.”
Along with her family’s love and support, Jeanette had the strong support of her community. Clearly moved, she tells me about all the expressions of love and solidarity people sent her throughout her time in sanctuary. She received messages from all across the country and gifts to make her stay in the basement more comfortable. People sent supermarket gift cards for her children so they would not have to go without anything. During those three months, Jeanette continued giving workshops and presentations remotely. She came up with a security plan in case it was necessary to leave quickly. Even though an immigration agent had never before entered a sanctuary space, Jeanette believes the Trump administration has no respect for anything, so she decided it was best to be prepared.
Jeanette’s experience with the media was very positive during this time. Her story was told in local and national outlets, and also internationally in the press in Japan, China, and France, and through Skype interviews in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.
“I got a lot of attention,” she says, “because ever since Trump, migration was getting talked about more. It was about time the subject got the attention it needed, and I’m happy my case helped with that. I’ve always known this is a double-edged sword, and my public profile could get me thrown out quicker, or it could help make a change.”
But Jeanette never imagined just how public her profile was about to get. She had been living in the church basement for almost two months when she got a phone call from her lawyer’s office. What she was told sounded like some kind of joke.
“Jeanette, I’ve got news. You have been nominated as one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine,” an assistant of Meyer’s told her, explaining the final list would be published April 20.
Jeanette did not take this very seriously. But a week later, she received in the mail the formal invitation to attend the gala celebrating the winners at Lincoln Center, in New York City. Then Jeanette saw that she had been included in a list alongside President Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
“Just imagine, twenty years of my life doing so many things, fighting. Yes, I did feel the satisfaction of knowing I have made a difference,” Jeanette says without false modesty. “Here in Colorado, I have built a community; my voice is heard. And it made me proud to be able to say: ‘Trump, I am shutting you up. We are not criminals; we can be right on the same list as you. And I can enjoy this award because my people respect and appreciate me. Three-quarters of the country hate you.’ How can that man sleep at night, knowing children are being left without mothers and fathers because of a deportation?”
On April 20, at five o’clock in the morning, Jeanette got the news that she had made the final list. She had spent sixty-four nights in sanctuary. She asked that her children be brought over. A few hours later, dressed in black pants, a black blouse with white dots, and a lightweight white sweater, her hair down in loose curls framing her dark face, with sharp features and small eyes, she emerged on the church front steps. Jennifer Piper, director of the interreligious program of the American Friends Service Committee, the organization behind the “Sanctuary Everywhere” campaign, stood alongside Jeanette and First Unitarian’s pastor, Mike Morran.11
Addressing the crowd that had gathered, Pastor Morran said that as people of faith, they were called to defend the families who are the base of their life in common. He emphasized that even though we may call God by different names, we are all called to work together against senseless forces trying to separate a mother from her children. Turning to Jeanette on the steps, he said, “This faith community believes separating this family is a great injustice.” With Piper serving as interpreter, Jeanette stood before the microphones and began speaking in Spanish. She explained that for her, this acknowledgment came after twenty years of struggle, of forging a path. She spoke about the fear, anger, and deception that come from living with the knowledge that governments are trying to break up families. She said she shared the honor with all migrant families fighting like her and also said that this fight is not only to keep families together, it’s a fight against hate. Her voice breaking from emotion, Jeanette dedicated the award to her children, at her side. She thanked the congressmen who had tried to find alternatives so she could stay in her community in an effort to show “we are not criminals.”
Referring to one of her fellow Most Influential People, Jeanette said, “I have contributed to this country with twenty years of hard work, and all those years I have paid taxes, and I can prove it, unlike Mr. Trump, who has not produced his tax return. We immigrants are not criminals; we are productive people.” Jeanette, of course, could not attend the gala in New York. She had her own celebration, surrounded by the people she loves, in sanctuary, with her community.
Right on the heels of the Time list, Jeanette got more good news: on May 12, immigration authorities informed her lawyer that a private motion presented by Colorado senator Michael Bennet on her behalf had been accepted, along with thirty-two similar initiatives that had been presented from around the country before May 5. Through an email, they were notified that for these thirty-two cases in particular, the criteria to suspend the order of deportation as applied by the Obama administration would be respected, while noting that future cases would not be treated in the same way. By then, Jeanette had moved to First Baptist Church, because some remodeling work was taking place at First Unitarian.
When she got the news, Jeanette decided to make it public through a live broadcast on her Facebook page. With her hair pulled back and a huge smile on her face, accompanied by a few others in a small room, Jeanette started to talk in a voice that sometimes faltered with emotion. She thanked everyone who had made it possible for her to stay in the country, from her lawyer to those who opened the doors of their churches.
“Tomorrow, I am leaving sanctuary. We did it! Tomorrow I’m leaving the church. I can be with my family. . . .” Jeanette’s voice breaks. She pauses to compose herself, but she cannot hold back her tears. “This is one of the best Mother’s Days. I can be with my children in my house. . . . I want to thank the churches that have welcomed us, that have given us the safe space to resist our deportation processes. To my children, my grandchildren . . .” Her voice catches in her throat again; she pauses for a moment. “To my father, who always gave me strength from Mexico, saying, ‘Daughter, don’t give up.’”
The new suspension of her deportation order, in effect for two years, was made possible in part because of the support Jeanette received from federal, state, and local officials, as well as the private motions presented by Senator Michael Bennet and Colorado congressmen Jared Polis and Ed Perlmutter. But Jeanette has another legal process in motion. In 2016, she applied for a U visa, which is given to people who have been the victims of a crime. Several years earlier, Jeanette had accused her husband of physically attacking her. Although, according to Jeanette, this was an isolated incident, if she gets the visa, her order of deportation will be permanently suspended and she will be allowed to live in the US for at least three years. Jeanette and her husband are now separated, but on good terms.
The day Jeanette and I talked on the phone, the proposed federal budget for 2018 was revealed. No budgetary cuts for sanctuary cities were in it. Even so, Jeanette is uneasy. She is sure the Trump administration will find another way to “suffocate” people trying to support immigrants, or those who simply refuse to carry out immigration enforcement tasks that are not their responsibility.
“I want our communities to be stronger. I want to be with my family, with my children. And I want more equality for everyone in the world; I want people to be respected no matter their race or origin. But the immigration fight is not going to stop, no matter what. My grandfather was part of the Bracero Program, and he died in that program. This is a long-term fight.”
The film and Emmy-winning actress, producer, and activist America Ferrera wrote the small biography of Jeanette Vizguerra published in Time magazine.12 It read,
Some families have emergency plans for fires, earthquakes or tornadoes. Jeanette Vizguerra’s family had an emergency plan for a dreaded knock at the door. If US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials came to her home, her children knew to film the encounter, alert friends and family and hide in the bedroom. The Vizguerra family lived in terror of being ripped apart by deportation.
Ferrera describes Vizguerra’s work as an outspoken advocate for immigration reform as “a bold and risky thing for an undocumented immigrant” and ends with, “She shed blood, sweat and tears to become a business owner, striving to give her children more opportunities than she had. This is not a crime. This is the American Dream.”