DENVER ( ICE has released the mother of 3 U.S born children - They have Dropped Deportation of Mexican Activist )

DENVER – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have released Jeanette Vizguerra, a Mexican activist living in Colorado, supporters of her 4-year-long battle against deportation said Friday.

This is an “unexpected occurrence,” Jordan Garcia, a director of the American Friends Service Committee’s Colorado Immigrant Rights Program, said.

He said ICE officials were known to be reviewing the plea entered by Vizguerra’s attorneys to cancel the deportation order.

Garcia described as “final” the federal agency’s decision not to deport Vizguerra, who has lived in the United States for 15 years and has three U.S.-born children.

For Garcia, the massive mobilization of the AFSC, the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, the Rights for All organization and the local affiliate of the Service Employees International Union helped bring about the canceling of the deportation.

In 2009, Vizguerra was arrested for driving without a license. Later investigations determined that she was not in the country legally and had used documents that did not belong to her to get work, though she had begun procedures to regularize her status.

ICE decided to deport her. In 2011, after a march through downtown Denver in favor of Vizguerra, the deportation was postponed, though a federal judge refused to close the case.

Without waiting for a final verdict, Vizguerra traveled to Mexico in 2012 to attend her mother’s funeral. Though she tried to stay in her native country, she was unable to find work, so she decided to return to the United States last April.

In doing so, she was detained for several days in El Paso, Texas, but was then released and returned to Denver.

Later, on July 24, Vizguerra was arrested upon entering a meeting with ICE, and on Aug. 5 her final appeal to avoid deportation was denied. EFE