Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday denied a pardon request from Ingrid Encalada Latorre, a Peruvian mother living in the U.S. unlawfully who took sanctuary to avoid being removed from the country.

The Democrat said his reasons for not granting clemency included Encalada Latorre’s conviction for felony criminal impersonation and the fact that the victim, who did not support clemency, suffered significant consequences.

“I sympathize with Ms. Encalada Latorre’s difficult circumstances and deeply regret the hardship she and her family may experience,” Hickenlooper said in a statement, released at the same time his staff informed her of the decision at the Capitol. “But clemency is the wrong approach to fixing our broken immigration system. It cannot, on its own, stop the deportation process.”

The 34-year-old’s request was a last-ditch legal effort to remain in the U.S. and comes a day before her stay of deportation expires.

“I am disappointed and now I will have to leave the country, I’ll have to return to Peru,” Encalada Latorre told reporters outside the governor’s offices, where she and her supporters waited since Tuesday for an answer. “This decision will really, definitively separate my family.”

Hickenlooper spoke to Encalada Latorre the day before and asked about the case and her life. Earlier in the day, the decision visibly weighed on him. In an interview, he struck a grave tone. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” he said. “It is just a hard issue, one of the toughest issues I’ve worked on.”

When asked what factors he was considering, Hickenlooper put it bluntly: “All the stuff you would expect — people’s lives.”

Hours later, in his statement, Hickenlooper called the decision “clear but still painful”

“I am moved by Ms. Encalada Latorre’s dream of being an American and her extraordinarily hard work to support her family while she was here,” he said in the statement announcing his decision. “The crime that Ms. Encalada Latorre committed was not victimless – far from it. Granting Ms. Encalada Latorre’s application would compound the injustice of this unfortunate situation, and it would be a step backward in the fight for smart, compassionate and comprehensive immigration reform.”

Hickenlooper, who is a potential presidential candidate in 2020, said he opposes harsh immigration policies to deport law-abiding immigrants.

State Sen. Dominick Moreno, D-Commerce City, stood next to Encalada Latorre after she learned the governor’s decision. He said the governor made “the wrong decision” and that she did what so many immigrants who come to the country illegally do to survive.

“It’s not fair to hold her accountable in that way, for only wanting to provide for her family and make a better life for herself and her children in the United States,” he said.

In May, the governor pardoned Rene Lima-Marin, who was inadvertently released from prison early but turned his life around. Like Encalada Latorre’s supporters, Lima-Marin’s friends and family asked the governor for a speedy decision to help him avoid deportation.

Encalada Latorre and her family and supporters waited in the governor’s office on and off since Tuesday morning, when after a brief rally on the west steps of the Capitol. She sat on a sofa in a waiting room as her son, Anibal, who will be 2 in November, toddled around holding his favorite blanket.

In the background, tour groups walked by from time to time, and the governor’s staff took phone calls. She had to leave a few times — Anibal had to go to the doctor, who recommended a specialist for an eye problem, and Encalada Latorre had to be home for an immigration check-in — so her aunt or a friend would sit in the waiting room instead.

At Tuesday’s rally, , Encalada Latorre held Anibal on one hip and spoke to the small group of supporters surrounding her.

“I hope that Gov. Hickenlooper will open his heart to give me a second chance,” she said to the crowd, via an interpreter. (Though Encalada Latorre often speaks to crowds of supporters in Spanish, she has given The Denver Post interviews both in English and with the help of an interpreter.)

She also apologized to Daisy Navarro, whose paperwork Encalada Latorre used to gain employment. Navarro applied for government assistance in 2009 and was denied because she appeared to be working. This spurred a criminal investigation, and charges were filed against Encalada Latorre in 2010. She accepted a guilty plea deal, thinking it would not affect her immigration case, but the felony charge proved difficult to shake.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post Arnie Carter, a member of the New Sanctuary Committee at the First Unitarian Society of Denver and a group of supporters walk with Ingrid Encalada Latorre as she completes the first steps in a long journey to keep her family together by having a felony conviction against her reduced to a misdemeanor on May 3, 2017. She entered Sanctuary 5 months ago to ensure she could attend her hearing's and have a chance to stay in the United States.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post Ingrid Encalada Latorre and her 18-month-old son Anibal Jurado listening to members of the Mountain View Friend meeting as they practice at the Quaker center where she and her youngest son have taken sanctuary on May 10, 2017/

Joe Amon, The Denver Post Ingrid Encalada Latorre laying down her 18-month-old son Anibal Jurado for a nap in her room at the Mountain View Friend meeting where they have taken sanctuary in Denver on May 10, 2017. Ingrid and her son have been living at the church for months while her older son Bryant Moya 8, and partner Eliseo Jurado live in the family home visiting them on weekends. May 10, 2017, Denver.



Joe Amon, The Denver Post On May 20, 2017 18-month-old Anibal Jurado with his older brother Bryant Moya 8, at Mountain View Friends Meeting where their mother Ingrid Encalada Latorre has been living in sanctuary since Dec. 7, 2016. Ingrid is facing deportation, her application pending with the D.C. office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement until her court cases are decided.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post After months of visits and sleepovers Eliseo Jurado, holding his 18-month-old son Anibal, and Anibal's older brother Bryant Moya, 8, take one last look inside at where their mother Ingrid Encalada Latorre has been living since she entered sanctuary on Dec. 7, 2016 at Mountain View Friends Meeting. Ingrid has been granted a temporary stay of deportation.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post Eighteen-month-old Anibal Jurado waiting with members of the Mountain View Friends Meeting and the sanctuary collation while his mother Ingrid Encalada Latorre has her ankle monitor fitted and activated at BI Incorporated in Greenwood Village so she can live with her family during her stay of deportation on May 22, 2017 in Greenwood Village.



Joe Amon, The Denver Post Ingrid Encalada Latorre has her ankle monitor activated at BI Incorporated in Greenwood Village so she can live with her family during her stay of deportation on May 22, 2017.

Joe Amon, The Denver Post Eighteen-month-old Anibal Jurado runs his mother Ingrid Encalada Latorre on their street in Westminster after living at the Mountain View Friends Meeting with her since Dec. 7, 2016. Her ankle monitor is barely visible but a constant reminder of the conditions she must follow so she can live with her family during her stay of deportation.

In December 2016, facing deportation, Encalada Latorre claimed sanctuary at Mountain View Friends Meeting House in Denver, a move designed to buy her time to attempt to reopen her criminal case, under the claim that her attorneys didn’t adequately advise her of the effects of the felony on her immigration status.

She didn’t leave sanctuary at Mountain View until May 2017, when she was granted a stay 30 days past her August court date. However, on Aug. 29, a judge denied her bid to reopen the case, which led her to ask the governor for a pardon.

Enclada Latorre has two children, both of whom are U.S. citizens.

While she waited, Encalada Latorre fasted — liquids only, she said — for more than a week. She lost 7 pounds.

She came to the U.S. alone when she was 17 but sought out an aunt in Colorado who was like a mother to her. “I lived with her, and she cared for me several years when I was a kid in Peru, and she’s a citizen and she lives here, so I followed her and my cousins to the U.S.,” Encalada Latorre said in an earlier interview.

“But there’s no way for her as my aunt to apply for me to bring me here, so I didn’t have any other option.”

When she first arrived, she signed up for college courses. But working two jobs, trying to improve her English skills and keeping up with coursework became too much. Now, she’s focused on her children instead of her own dream to go to college.

Jeff Joseph, Encalada Latorre’s immigration attorney, said immigration enforcement seemed “amenable to letting her leave on her own rather than being taken into custody” in an email conversation Wednesday. Since her stay expires Friday, he said, “She’ll have to report something to them today.”

The pardon has been a last-ditch legal effort to remain in the U.S. “There’s no other option at this point,” he said.

Her older son, Bryant, turned 9 over the weekend. She still hasn’t received his passport in the mail. Earlier this week, she said she was trying not to think about having to return to Peru, though, and hasn’t talked to anyone there. “I’m not close to anyone in Peru,” she said. “My family is here.”

Staff writer Jesse Paul contributed to this report.