Jeanette Vizguerra, detained immigrant activist, likely to be released in coming days

Immigrant activist Jeanette Vizguerra is on the precipice of being released from an immigration detention facility after an immigration judge ruled Sunday that she can post bail.

Denver immigration judge Brea Burgie set Vizguerra’s bail at $5,000, but she included no other restrictions, like an ankle monitor. Her family intends to immediately post the bond, her legal team said in a statement. She likely won’t be released for at least 24 to 48 hours, said Jenn Piper, the program co-director for the American Friends Service Committee of Denver. Still, Burgie’s ruling means Vizguerra, a mother of four children, will be home by Christmas.

The order comes two days after Vizguerra’s legal team argued that the activist, who was born in Mexico and has spent most of the last 28 years in the United States, posed no flight risk and was not a danger to the community. She has been detained in the Aurora detention center since March, when she was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at her work.

Vizguerra’s legal team said Sunday that Burgie found that Vizguerra “does not pose a danger to the community,” nor did she pose a flight risk, given her “strong family and community ties” and her previous compliance with court proceedings.

Vizguerra’s bail hearing took place Friday because of the order of a separate federal judge last week. When her family posts bail, Vizguerra will be released while her broader legal efforts to stay in the country — and fight her deportation — play out in both immigartion and federal court.

An activist who received national attention when she sheltered in a Denver church for years during President Donald Trump’s first term, Vizguerra was named one of TIME’s most influential people in 2017. Earlier this year and while in detention, she won a humanitarian award from the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization.

Vizguerra’s supporters have held regular vigils for her outside of the detention center for months.

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