Colorado immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra speaks to supporters for first time since release

Jeanette Vizguerra, the immigration activist who's been living in Colorado since 1997, spoke to supporters in Denver on Tuesday for the first time since her release from the GEO Group immigration detention center in Aurora on Monday. She was detained in the facility for nine months.

Vizguerra spoke through a translator outside the federal courthouse in Denver on Tuesday, saying she's speaking out against the detention of herself and others.

"I have confronted many different parts of power, I have spoken truth to power over many different administrations, many presidents across this country, and over all of those 30 years," her translator, Jennifer Piper, of the American Friends Service Committee, said. "I have done this because I believe that every single one of us has this right under the Constitution, that I have the right to critique the government, to speak out when I see something is wrong, to analyze what is happening, and to share my opinion and to make that real for my community."

Vizguerra came to Colorado from Mexico in 1997 without documentation through Texas, according to ICE, working as a janitor before becoming a vocal advocate for the rights of immigrants in the United States.

Current and former immigration officials say Vizguerra came to the U.S. illegally and has evaded deportation before. She and her supporters believe immigration officials are targeting Vizguerra for "political theater" and retribution for her activism and speech while ignoring dangerous criminals, who should instead be their focus.

The Department of Homeland Security, in a statement on Tuesday, said it will continue to work to deport Vizguerra.

"Jeanette Vizguerra is a convicted criminal alien from Mexico who has a final order of deportation issued by a federal immigration judge," the agency wrote in its statement. "Her criminal history includes document forgery, driving without a license, and illegal re-entry. She illegally entered the United States near El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 24, 1997, and has received full due process. She was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge in 2013. Under the Biden administration she was granted several stays of deportation and this administration is working to correct that error. Now, an activist judge has made her eligible to be released on bond. We will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of illegal aliens who have no right to be in this country."

Vizguerra said she'll continue to fight her deportation.

"In 2011, I was here fighting my deportation, and an immigration judge gave me a voluntary departure. I appealed that decision, and while I was waiting on appeal, I learned that my mother was about to die in Mexico, and I made the difficult decision to go and then to come back to be with my family," her translator said.

"When I left, I complied with that voluntary departure, and I will keep fighting to show that I did that, and now that I have an opportunity, I should still have an opportunity to fight my immigration case," she continued. "But what's happening here, what's happening right now is this administration is playing with my life. They're targeting me, they're playing with my First Amendment rights. They're making a game out of free speech and they targeted me and held me in detention for over nine months because of that speech."