WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award named a prominent Colorado immigrant rights activist as one of its 2025 recipients. A ceremony to honor Jeanette Vizguerra and the other recipients — Maine Gov. Janet Mills and former U.S. Department of Justice Pardon Attorney Elizabeth Oyer — is scheduled for June 5 in the nation's capital.
"Working as government representatives and grassroots activists, Mills, Oyer, and Vizguerra were selected for their moral courage and willingness to act on their convictions – even at great personal risk," the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights nonprofit organization said in its award announcement.
The RFK Human Rights Award honors people who the organization thinks championed social justice and stood up to oppression of human rights in a nonviolent manner.
Vizguerra has lived in the United States for nearly 30 years. She said she escaped violence in Mexico City in 1997 with her husband and her then-6-year-old daughter. Vizguerra has fought her deportation back to Mexico City since 2009. In that time, she has become an activist, most well known for seeking sanctuary at a Denver church to avoid deportation during President Donald Trump's first term.
She has been convicted of two misdemeanors during her time in the U.S. In February 2009, Vizguerra was convicted of criminal possession of a forged instrument for having a fake Social Security card. She ended up serving a 23-day sentence. Four years later, in May 2013, she was convicted of illegal entry into the county. She went back to Mexico for her mother's funeral when she returned to the U.S. without documentation. She was sentenced to a year of supervised probation for that case. Vizguerra has become a spokesperson for immigrant rights, founding the Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition, and she was named Time 100's Most Influential People in 2017.
She was most recently detained without warning on March 17, 2025 outside her job at Target. Since then, Vizguerra is in custody at an immigration detention facility in Aurora. An ICE spokesperson confirmed with Denver7 that Vizguerra will remain in custody of the agency pending removal from the U.S.
"Vizguerra is a convicted criminal alien from Mexico who has a final order of deportation issued by a federal immigration judge. She illegally entered the United States near El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 24, 1997, and has received legal due process in U.S. immigration court,” the ICE spokesperson said.
A day after her arrest, Vizguerra filed a petition in U.S. District Court of Colorado to ask a judge to determine whether ICE acted within the law, according to the timeline provided by ICE.
"The government wants to silence my voice, but I will continue to sow rebellion until I reap freedom," Vizguerra said upon hearing the news she would win the RFK Human Rights Award. "This award is not only for me but for every person who has been involved in my life—especially my children and my immigrant community. I hope our voices are never silenced.”
Related coverage:
- Federal attorneys dispute Jeanette Vizguerra’s right to claim First Amendment violation in detention challenge
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- Federal judge orders ICE not to deport Jeanette Vizguerra with court case still pending
- Supporters rally at Auraria Campus to demand release of immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra
- Former Denver ICE director on agency’s history with Jeanette Vizguerra: ‘She's had more than due process'
- 'I need my mom back': Supporters of immigrant rights activist reportedly detained by ICE rally in her defense
- Immigrant rights activist taken into ICE custody in Aurora 'without warning,' advocacy groups say
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