AURORA, Colo. — At the Aurora ICE Processing Center, hundreds of people are being held, waiting to see if the United States of America will open its doors to them, offering them a path to citizenship, or close those doors to keep them out.
Colorado leaders on both sides of the political aisle have gone on record to say the immigration system is broken.
For the people navigating that system alongside their families, they describe the process as a state of waiting.
Watch this full special in the video player below.
Eight months of detention
In March 2025, ICE agents arrested immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra after a years-long deportation fight.
Vizguerra first came into the U.S. in 1997, fleeing violence in Mexico City.
She settled with her four children in Colorado.
She gained notoriety in 2017 when, while facing deportation, she sought sanctuary in a church for 86 days before being granted a stay.
“In 2017, I’m recognized by Times Magazine as the one person with (the) most influence in the world for my work, to protect my community. I’m no criminal, I am a mom. I’m grandma. I like to only protect my community,” Vizguerra said.
In an exclusive interview with Denver7 via video call while detained, Vizguerra shared what led up to her detention.
“I’m walking in the parking lot of my job. I tried to go in my car and they started coming from different sides, different agencies, and ICE,” Vizguerra said. “Regular cars — they don’t have identification. ICE agents… one person, my first question for this guy was, 'Do you have a warrant? Do you have a warrant?' He said no… They put the regular chains on my hands and my feet. And I continued to talk to these guys for my warrant. Never showed me a warrant.”
Vizguerra said she was given two phone calls. She called her lawyer and her family.
“My family alerted the community. The community arrived before they (brought) me here in Geo,” Vizguerra said.
The Aurora Processing Center where Vizguerra is being held is run by The Geo Group.
For months, every Tuesday, community members have rallied outside the center in Aurora, demanding Vizguerra’ s release.
“This is not criminal. For what am I staying here? Only for my political opinion. This is enough. It’s enough, it’s eight months. My family needs me,” Vizguerra said.
Vizguerra is still hopeful she will get to return to her home in Colorado.
“I’m praying I come back in my home. In this moment, I’m emotional. My daughter Luna takes my position in the community and fights very strong for me,” Vizguerra said. “In November, she is leaving for service to country. Go in the Air Force. It’s ridiculous, my daughter, before ICE arrested me — she (took) the position service to country…. And her mama’s in here.”
Through her tears, Vizguerra encouraged all people currently detained in ICE facilities to continue to stay strong.
“Continue to fight, continue to fight, your family needs you. Never stop,” Vizguerra said.
Deported to a country he isn’t from
“My heart breaks for the families that are in there right now, having to go through the same process that I have been through,” Alexandria Dowell said while standing outside the ICE facility in Aurora.
Dowell’s husband Ariel Cruz Penton spent weeks at the facility fighting deportation.
“So, it kind of started a long time ago, when he first entered the U.S.. He entered at the border and pleaded political asylum,” Dowell said. “They granted him political asylum and parole through his credible fear interview, which he had. And then after that, my husband went to court and saw a judge where he asked to fight his case for political asylum outside of the jail, because he wasn't a criminal, and he was being treated inhumanely. At that moment, he signed papers that he didn't know that he was signing, and that unfortunately gave up his right for parole and political asylum, and is kind of why we're in this mess today.”
Dowell said an order of deportation was then issued.
“My husband was able to have a working permit and was able to be here through that process, just going to immigration check-ins every single year… So, this year, we went into his immigration check-in in May, and I honestly was very nervous about it,” Dowell said. “And then three weeks later, out of the blue, I kissed my husband goodbye, and I didn't realize that would be the last time I would kiss him goodbye. And then I went to work, and he dropped off our daughter at daycare, and he went to go check out a home for a side renovation job that they were going to look at getting signed on for. And all of a sudden, he parked his car in a neighborhood in Centennial, and three unmarked cars came, pulled up, blocked him off and had him get out of the car and arrested him.”
Dowell said she searched for her husband for hours.
“My husband has no criminal record, not even a speeding ticket to his name,” Dowell said. “He was here at the Aurora Detention Center. I remember waking up super, super early before work and trying to take my daughter just so she can see him. And again, it's through a glass window and a phone like the movies.”
Dowell said her 2-year-old daughter constantly asks where her father is.
“She doesn't know. I have to tell her that her dad's at work, and I think that's the hardest part, but I'm also so blessed at the same time, because I don't want her to have to deal with the emotional toll that I've had to deal with,” Dowell said.
Penton was eventually transferred to an immigrant detention facility in El Paso, Texas.
“That day was also really traumatic, because it was like the same day that he was detained all over again. You're in the dark. They don't show up in the system for days until they're processed into the new facility. So, you have no idea where they're being taken. You're not able to speak to them. No one's telling you anything. And even as a wife, I'm like, I have a marriage certificate. I had to show proof of that, and they still couldn't tell me anything,” Dowell said. “Then he's at the El Paso Texas facility, and it's way worse, he's not able to have regular phone calls. So, I maybe got two phone calls with him before he was actually deported, and then when he was deported, he didn't show up in the system again for days.”
Penton was deported to Mexico even though he is Cuban.
“All of a sudden, I get a phone call and he's in Mexico, in the middle of nowhere," she said, adding that he had a phone, but not much else. "He has no ID, no money, nothing. And so, I had to fly out there on the Fourth of July. My mom flew out with my aunt the night before to then take care of my daughter, so I can then fly out, bring him a suitcase of clothes,” Dowell said. “It's really concerning that people are able to be deported to places that they're not even from. But if I'm being completely honest, Cuba is not safe either… And Mexico is a place where I can go and visit him with my daughter, which I'm really blessed, and at least it's a Spanish-speaking country, right? So, at least he can do that as well, but it's still not a safe place for him.”
Penton said she is now living as a single mother, working to support her daughter and her husband who just recently gained citizenship in Mexico, which will allow him to work there, but employment opportunities are limited.
“He, as a man and a provider, wants to be able to help support me financially, and he wants to be able to, you know, do more, and he sees the toll that it’s taken, and I think he's really struggling with that,” Dowell said. “His dream was to live in a place where he can be free and work hard and find a family. And he always tells me every day like he's living his dream. And then when this happened, it was just taken from him.”
Dowell said she is now in the process of securing new legal representation for her husband, and her husband’s experiences navigating the immigration system has changed the way she feels about it.
“I've always been someone who is like, do it the right way. It's important to do it the right way. And unfortunately, I didn't know what that meant until I met my husband, and now I do, and I feel horrible because it's so difficult, and it's honestly a privilege to be able to do it the right way. Because not everyone coming in has access to the right representation and the money to be able to pay for representation. This is going to be our third round of immigration attorneys,” Dowell said.
Casa de Paz
Andrea Loya is the executive director of Casa de Paz, a nonprofit organization that focuses on those who are detained, and assists them as they're released from detention centers.
“It definitely has changed. We actually saw a drastic drop in people who were being released… We went from seeing 60 to 100 people in a day to seeing three to six people a day,” Loya said. “I think for sure there's hope in seeing the releases, because that definitely keeps us going and seeing people actually being free, but the system is far from working. It is working for those that may find themselves right on time, having the monetary resources for it.”
Loya said the U.S. immigration system has been broken for decades, from one president to the next.
She said one of her client’s experiences perfectly reflects the nuance.
“His wife was already here. His wife was in New York. His wife had done all the work and all the legal process requests for him so that when he arrived at that border, he could just meet his family. And that did not happen. He was detained for over a year, and released the day after the election, and he was now even in more fear, because he just didn't know what was going to happen,” Loya said.
She said the man entered the country during the Biden administration, was stuck in detention due to a glitch in the system and then released during Trump’s second administration.
“He was, like, ‘I learned English, I took classes before coming here, I was doing the most, so that this would not happen. And now I am finding myself in this situation,’” Loya said.
She said a lot of the immigrants she works with were going through the legal process when they were detained.
Loya said immigration arrests have increased over the past year, including in places outside of the Denver metro area.
“In the outskirts, in the mountains — areas that there's a lot of ICE activity… There's a lot of labor up there that I think immigration understands,” Loya said.
Enforcement in the Western Slope
“My own mother was deported back in the early 90s (on) the Western Slope. She was working in Aspen, Colorado, took a bus, and many workers that evening were picked up in an actual raid,” Alex Sanchez, executive director of Voces Unidas de las Montañas, a nonprofit that supports the growth and education of Latino and Latina leaders, said. “We're well aware of what that trauma feels like, or that disruption that ICE raids create.”
Sanchez said his organization has been working to support impacted families.
“Unfortunately, when there are crises such as COVID, wildfires, or ICE raids, we meet our community where we are and we have been creating infrastructure and supporting our community since January 2025, as it relates to immigration enforcement in the western slope,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez said the increase in enforcement comes at a time when Summit County, home to world-renowned ski resorts like Breckenridge, Keystone, and Copper Mountain, face a hospitality labor shortage.
“Western Colorado cannot exist without the labor force and Latinas and Latinos… Restaurants, construction companies, the ski industry, agriculture, every segment is struggling to find a willing labor force and enough to be able to meet the demands that we have today. The solution is not less workers. The solution is we need more workers,” Sanchez said.
Ski area and resort companies like Vail Resorts recruit some immigrants with a promise of H-2B visas, which are for temporary nonagricultural workers. But the visas are only good for one year and not all workers are given the option to extend.
Over 100 miles away, in Greeley, farmers are also looking for workers.
“We really do take care of our employees,” said Jordan Hungenberg, farmer and owner of Hungenberg Produce. “We have 1,000 people on a waiting list to work here.”
Hungenberg, who operates one of the only carrot farms in the U.S., said it wasn’t always this way.
“(In) 2017, we actually went to Work Release to hire people to work, because we didn't have enough people even apply and we advertised ‘Now Hiring’ everywhere we could. We hired from Work Release every day, and that was the reason that we quit growing cabbage — because we figured we're never going to have enough labor,” Hungenberg said.
He said immigrant workers filled the gap as the farm increased carrot production.
“They're good people. The work is hard, but not too hard. You show up. It's simple… We're putting carrots in a box, we're boxing stuff, we're palletizing stuff, we're wrapping pallets, and it's just continuous work,” Hungeberg said.
In Colorado, state law mandates farm workers work 40-hour weeks and are guaranteed overtime pay when they work more than that.
“They love to work 10- or 12-hour days, and we're here with them,” Hungenberg said. “But at the end of the day, when you're paying, you know, $30,000 or $40,000 of overtime every week, it just eats away. It's a lot."
Hungenberg said overtime costs mean he can’t hire as many workers, but the employees they do employ are grateful for the work.
“I would say that in other places, South America, often spots in Mexico, they are making in an hour here what they make in a day down there. And that's coming straight from some of our workers,” Hungenberg said.
A child farm workers story
Decades ago, writer Jesus Garcia had a much different experience while working on a farm.
“My grandparents, Natalio and Juanita Nolasco, came from Mexico in 1918 and they were summoned by the federal government — U.S. government — to come help the beet producers in northern Colorado near Greeley,” Garcia said.
In the 1950s, Garcia found himself in the produce fields as well.
His earliest memories as a child farm worker go back to when he was 6 years old.
“I was picking green beans in Fort Lupton… I was in first grade. Interestingly enough, we lived in Adams City, which is an unincorporated part of Adams County, so close to Denver. So, we would go to the beet fields, and we even picked tomatoes… in ‘55,” Garcia said. “You would start at 5:30 in the morning, probably from the fields, but we probably (left) earlier to get there, maybe half an hour, 45 minutes from the Denver area to drive there.”
Garcia said on most farms they worked on, there was no drinking water or restrooms.
During this time, he was still attending school after working all morning in the fields.
“Because we gave up our childhood, I felt that we were not considered as children. We were considered as workers,” Garcia said. “My older brother, he's passed on, but he reminded me that 'You're smart, you can get out of this.' Took me aside — I was 9 years old — and said, ‘So, you're going to get ahead.' Can you imagine that? And I think he was 14, and he was speaking to me like an adult. I mean, 'You're going to get out of this. You're smart.’ I was like 'What?’ So I took that to heart.”
Garcia is writing a memoir documenting his time as a child farm worker.
He said those experiences speak to the current moment.
“We don't value people who work with their hands and produce even though we provide. Food, the food sustenance for our tables. There is a lot of irony, yeah, and it's sad,” Garcia said.
A retired ICE agents story
“Well, initially, we were called INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) agents, and so the last part of that was service, which is what made me want to be an agent,” said a retired ICE agent who has requested to remain anonymous due to the nature of their previous work. “What stood out initially, in my initial assignment was, of course, the agents that I worked with. We were all in the same boat, ethically and lawfully, and our leadership was that as well.”
But the agent said that wouldn’t always be the case.
“When I transferred to another office, it was obvious that it was leadership that dictated that environment. But by that time, I thought it was too late for me to leave,” the agent said. “What I noticed in the system is the leaders, whoever is leading that particular field office, or district office, as it was called, would dictate how the individuals worked. So, there were a couple offices I worked in where the leadership was unethical, and consequently the troops were that as well.”
The agent said the work was tough, especially when carrying out detainments leading to deportations.
“Especially since some (of) the community members that I arrested, I have similarities with, so of course, it was tough,” the agent said. “Because of those similarities, some individuals in custody would latch on to me, and of course, I understood that, and I would either speak in their language, or I would culturally be able to identify with them. However, sometimes there were some individuals who viewed me as a sellout, and that was sort of the term that was used at times.”
The agent said they worry about the current state of ICE.
“Well, it's obvious what's driving these agents, we have senior agents, journeyman federal agents on the street, conducting street sweeps, which they are allowed to do, of course, on the lowest level of proof, reasonable suspicion. Instead of these journeymen, senior agents doing complex criminal investigations, they are doing sweeps, which tells me that what's driving this agenda or this way of policing is numbers,” the agent said.
But the agent still believes in the organization’s mission.
“I think what's missing from the broader narrative is the agent's position. I see some criticism, or I hear about some criticisms of the agents and who are doing their job ethically, when, in fact, we simply focus on the agents who are perhaps using excessive force. I do understand why agents would want to wear a mask to protect their identity, because look what I'm doing now,” the agent said.
Covering immigration cases while going through the process
On the other side of the camera for many of the immigration stories Denver7 has reported on is Denver7 photographer Cesar Sabogal.
“I was born in Colombia. My hometown is Santa Marta. It's a city in the north coast, in front of the ocean, 90 to 100 degrees the whole year,” Sabogal said. “My first job was in a news show, and I was there for about eight to 10 months. My position there was as a graphic designer.”
After a full career in Colombia, when Sabogal and his ex-wife who was from California began having children, they decided to move to the U.S. and settle in Denver.
But the process wasn’t easy.
“It took six years… You need a green card. That's the first step of the process. And even if you are married to an American person, you can't apply if you are living abroad, if you're living in another country. That's something that you have to do this when you move. So, I moved here in 2018, and if you're married to, I mean, if you are still married, you can apply three years later,“ Sabogal said.
Sabogal’s marriage would end amicably, but this complicated his path to citizenship.
“When I went for my written test, our divorce was pretty friendly, was a mutual decision to get divorced. So, when we made the agreement, we just decided, like, 'OK, you pay for this, I pay for this, and that's it.' But for the officer during the interview, he was like, ‘Are you paying child support? I need more proof about this.' And he said, ‘I can’t make a decision right now. You need to send me more paperwork,’” Sabogal said. “The first time that you apply for a visa, you feel guilty for no reason. So, it's not easy to be in an appointment with an officer, because… if they don't like you, they have the power to decide ‘I don't like you — denied.' When I was waiting for that approval, I was like ‘OK, maybe, if they say no, if these officers make the decision that I'm not a good enough guy to be a citizen, I'll have to go back. You know, and at least my kids are getting older, so teenagers, so they will understand. We'll be sad, but they’ll understand.'”
For six years, Sabogal spent thousands of dollars, filled out hundreds of pages of paperwork and hired an attorney as he navigated the naturalization process, while also covering immigration stories for Denver7.
“It's hard, you know, because I know that... I'm a privileged guy, that I did it like how they expect you to do it. But I feel for the other people too. I mean, this is, not only all the paperwork, not only all the requirements, it's the money too. This is not cheap. And when I see people who are here, doing it the right way, even if they didn't come to the country the right way, I feel like they probably deserve better treatment. I agree with the criminals getting kicked out. I agree with that. I mean, nobody wants criminals in their countries, you know. But I mean, it's sad to see, to be present in those moments where the people are getting captured or whatever, and you can’t do anything. I mean, it's not easy. It's not easy for me,” Sabogal said.
After years of worrying that he would have to leave his children and career behind to return to Colombia, in August 2025, Cesar Sabogal learned he would become an American citizen. He was sworn in shortly after.
“I’m proud, happy, relieved for being a citizen, for being an American. I love this country, even in this moment of turmoil,” Sabogal said. "I love to work here. I love the people. I love my friends. I love my colleagues. So, let's say that I'm living the American dream.”
Watch this full special in the video player below.
