ICE Detains Prominent Immigration Activist in Grim Sign for Future

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has detained a prominent immigration advocate in Colorado.

Agents stopped Jeanette Vizguerra Monday in the parking lot of a Target where she works. Her daughter told NBC 9NEWS that she is being detained at an ICE facility on Oakland Street in Aurora, Colorado. Her family has not been in communication with her since about 3 p.m. Monday.

“Jeanette Vizguerra is a mother and pillar in her community,” Colorado Senator Michael Bennet posted on X Tuesday. “I am deeply concerned about ICE’s actions to detain her without any due process, like a deportation order. ICE should ensure Jeanette has legal counsel and immediately release her.”

Vizguerra spent years fighting her own deportation. She was charged with a misdemeanor in 2009 for driving without a license, after which authorities discovered she was undocumented and attempted to remove her from the country. But Vizguerra drew national attention for thwarting those efforts by taking refuge in a church, which has historically been considered a “sensitive location” inaccessible by ICE.

She proceeded to reside in the church for three years, and eventually created a network of local churches to house immigrants in similar need, called the Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition.

Vizguerra was again scheduled for deportation in 2017 but once more took refuge in a church. She was granted a stay of deportation by the Biden administration in 2021.

The longtime activist arrived from Mexico City without proper documentation in 1997. Since then, she has struggled to find a pathway to citizenship, lacking the paperwork needed to apply for permanent residency.

ICE policy prohibits agents from accessing schools, hospitals, and religious sites such as churches, mosques, and synagogues, as well as public demonstrations and religious ceremonies such as funerals and weddings. But Donald Trump revoked that ordinance mere hours after his inauguration, leaving practically no shelter for immigrants that the Trump administration deems deserving of shoving out.

Trump has based his anti-immigrant rhetoric on the falsehood that the people who have entered the U.S. are murderers and rapists, and that they are a drain on the country’s economy and government resources as unemployed migrants struggle to obtain work and housing. In reality, undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens. And in 2022, approximately 4.5 percent of the workforce was undocumented, contributing to some $75.6 billion in total taxes, according to the American Immigration Council.

Vizguerra, however, saw the writing on the wall.

“Whatever place. I don’t care if it’s a hospital, I don’t care if it’s a school, I don’t care if it’s a church.… I don’t care if some people have 40, 50 years here,” she told CBS News Colorado in January. “Everybody is at risk.”

That has proved truer than ever just two months into Trump’s second term. So far, the administration has deported immigrants of all stripes. It has removed individuals who’ve lived and worked in the country for decades, individuals who are married to U.S. citizens, and individuals in the process of renewing their visas. It has also revoked permanent resident status from people who have dared to speak out against the Trump agenda.

Donald Trump called Tuesday for a federal judge to be impeached, after the president was accused of defying a court order barring his massive deportations.

Trump attacked Judge James Boasberg, who issued a written order Sunday temporarily barring the White House from deporting noncitizens currently in custody. The president had invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of individuals the government claims are Venezuelan gang members without due process.

Boasberg had also verbally ordered that two planes already in the air turn around and come back to the States. The flights instead continued to their destination in El Salvador—potentially marking the first instance that Trump’s White House has openly defied a federal court order.

In an enraged rant on Truth Social, the president escalated his attacks on the federal judiciary by demanding that Boasberg be impeached, and in classic Trump fashion, he also managed to make it about President Barack Obama.

“This Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator who was sadly appointed by Barack Hussein Obama, was not elected President—He didn’t WIN the popular VOTE (by a lot!), he didn’t WIN ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, he didn’t WIN 2,750 to 525 Counties, HE DIDN’T WIN ANYTHING!” Trump wrote.

“I WON FOR MANY REASONS, IN AN OVERWHELMING MANDATE, BUT FIGHTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION MAY HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE REASON FOR THIS HISTORIC VICTORY. I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do,” Trump wrote. “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed Monday that the administration had complied with the judge’s order and that there was a difference between a judge’s written and verbal order. She also claimed that she was “not aware” of the president using any language about impeaching judges.

The world’s richest man thinks it’s unfair that people aren’t as interested in his products due to his far-right political views.

Elon Musk took to the social media platform he owns Monday night to vent about his alleged mistreatment.

“My companies make great products that people love and I’ve never physically hurt anyone,” Musk posted. “So why the hate and violence against me?”

But Musk had his own answer in mind.

“Because I am a deadly threat to the woke mind parasite and the humans it controls,” the Sieg heil!–waving billionaire wrote.

Tesla shares continued to tumble on Monday as one of its Chinese competitors, BYD, unveiled a system that could charge electric vehicles for a range of 249 miles in just five minutes.

Tesla comprises the majority of Musk’s net worth—but the carmaker’s ongoing eight-week slump is largely due to a global brand boycott.

Company stock is down by 50 percent so far this year, and analysts have faulted Musk’s reputational shift for the automaker’s financial woes.

Tesla historically attracted a more liberal consumer base with its electric vehicles, but since Musk went “dark MAGA,” that same base has soured on the tech billionaire and his products. That’s proven especially true in some of Europe’s stronger economies, such as Germany, which has seen sales in the country fall by more than 70 percent over the last two months, reported Bloomberg. Sales in China—where Tesla has two major factories—have similarly plummeted, falling by 49 percent in February.

Last week, the automaker’s stock had its worst day since 2020, as its Musk-induced problems coincided with historic market volatility under Donald Trump’s new tariff plans.

Board members, executives, and major investors in Tesla are jumping ship. Four top officers at the company have unloaded more than $100 million in stock since last month, reported ABC News. They include James Murdoch, the estranged son of right-wing media magnate Rupert Murdoch, and Elon Musk’s brother Kimbal Musk, the latter of whom shed $27 million, according to an SEC filing.

Even Tesla bulls are slowing down on the electric car manufacturer. Mizuho Securities managing director and senior analyst Vijay Rakesh cut his firm’s price target for Tesla by $85 per share, according to Barron’s. In a statement, Rakesh pointed to Musk’s polarizing persona and his influence in “geopolitics” as two reasons for the downturn.

“We believe Tesla’s sales woes are the result of a deterioration in geopolitics, brand perception (US/EU), share loss due to stronger competition (China), and softer-than-expected demand for the Model Y refresh,” wrote the analyst.

But despite Musk’s insistence on playing the victim, the multibillionaire still has the president on his side: Defying federal regulations, Trump used the White House last week as a backdrop for what was practically a Tesla commercial.

Several Tesla vehicles were parked in the White House driveway as Trump, joined by Musk and his son, answered reporters’ questions about his sudden affinity for the electric vehicle.

Tech oligarch Elon Musk has extended his influence over the White House even further: His Starlink internet service has been made accessible across the White House campus.

Trump administration officials say Musk donated the service, and that it was vetted by the Office of the White House Counsel’s lawyer handling ethics issues. But according to former White House officials from the Biden administration, tech donations need to go through approval from the chief information officers at the White House and the General Services Administration.

The Starlink system is routed through a White House data center with existing fiber cables miles away from Washington, D.C., unlike normal Starlink setups, which involve rectangular terminals that receive internet signals from SpaceX satellites orbiting arth.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Starlink was set up “to improve Wi-Fi connectivity on the complex.” Other administration staff told The New York Times that some parts of the White House complex could not get cell service, with Wi-Fi networks handling too much traffic at times.

There are a few problems with having the world’s richest man donate internet service to the White House: namely, the numerous conflicts of interest and ethics issues. Musk already collects billions of dollars through his government contracts, and controls Starlink. If White House employees are using the internet service, he could have access to their data. There are also questions as to how secure Starlink’s network is.

Starlink has also been set up at the GSA, an agency used as a base for Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. And it has contracts with many other government agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, usually to provide internet access in remote locations and in emergency situations. The fact that it’s now being used at one of the most important U.S. federal buildings raises questions about whether Musk has an ulterior motive—and what that may be.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency staffers used police and private security to forcefully take over the U.S. Institute of Peace on Monday.

The USIP, an independent nonprofit founded by Congress, had its president, Greg Moose, and its board fired last week by the Trump administration. The Associated Press reported that DOGE workers on Monday had law enforcement escort them into USIP, which is not located in a federal building, after previously being denied access.

“DOGE just came into the building—they’re inside the building—they’re bringing the F.B.I. and brought a bunch of D.C. police,” USIP lawyer Sophia Lin told The New York Times as she and other staff members were forced out of the building.

“What has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit,” Moose told reporters. “It was very clear that there was a desire on the part of the administration to dismantle a lot of what we call foreign assistance, and we are part of that family.”

It’s business as usual from the White House’s perspective.

Due to USIP staff’s noncompliance with Trump’s order, “11 board members were lawfully removed, and remaining board members appointed Kenneth Jackson acting president,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage. The Trump administration will enforce the president’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.”

The privately operated USIP works to maintain U.S. diplomacy abroad, and its staff was doing all they could do to emphasize that before the DOGE break-in. “I can’t imagine how our work could align more perfectly with the goals that he has outlined: keeping us out of foreign wars, resolving conflicts before they drag us into those kinds of conflicts,” Moose noted. Musk seems to disagree.