“I Am a Political Prisoner”: Immigrant Rights Activist Jeanette Vizguerra Speaks from ICE Jail

We speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa after she got extraordinary access to an ICE detention center in Colorado, where she interviewed the immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra. The undocumented mother of four was arrested by federal agents in Denver in March after she successfully fought multiple deportation efforts since 2009, including when she took sanctuary in a Denver church with her children in 2017. She received a stay of removal but returned to sanctuary in 2019 when it expired, then received additional stays under the Biden administration that also expired. She now finds herself in the sights of the Trump administration as it seeks to fulfill its goal of mass deportations of immigrants. “I am a political prisoner,” Vizguerra told Hinojosa. She “believes that she is not being held in immigrant detention because of her immigration status, but rather she is being held because of her words and because of her activism,” says Hinojosa.