Atlanta journalist detained by ICE is ordered deported
The Atlanta-area journalist whose immigration arrest sparked national conversation is facing imminent deportation to his home country of El Salvador, following an immigration appeals court’s decision to order him removed.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Mario Guevara, a longtime fixture of Georgia Spanish-language media, “could be put on a deportation plane at any moment.”
Guevara, who has a valid work permit and a path to residency through his U.S. citizen son, had been granted bond in July. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement took steps to block Guevara’s release, filing an appeal. Friday’s decision renders the July bond decision moot.
The reporter has been in the agency’s custody for over three months.
On Friday, Guevara’s attorneys filed an emergency brief in Georgia federal court seeking his release.
“Our concern is that the Department of Homeland Security will take immediate steps to remove him from the country, and that would then make it difficult to impossible for him to get the relief that we’re seeking, and to be reunited with his family,” said Andres Lopez-Delgado, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Georgia.
Guevara was first arrested June 14 while livestreaming a tense anti-ICE protest in DeKalb County. He was charged with obstructing law enforcement officers, unlawful assembly and pedestrian walking on a road.
Although those charges were later dropped, he was quickly transferred from DeKalb County Jail into ICE custody.
Press freedom advocates described ICE’s treatment of Guevara as an attack against him for his coverage of ICE raids, which he has documented all over metro Atlanta for an audience of more than a million people on social media and his own website. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Guevara is the sole journalist in ICE custody nationwide.
“In spite of having no criminal or violent background, all charges dropped for lack of evidence, a path to a green card, and a work permit that allowed him to take care of his family and be self-sufficient, Mario Guevara has an order of deportation,” said Gigi Pedraza, executive director of the Atlanta-based Latino Community Fund. “Democracy thrives on free press and checks and balances, both seem under threat and Mario is a symbol of that.”
In a July phone call with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Guevara described his prolonged detention as mentally and physically draining.
“I’m emotionally destroyed,” he told the AJC from the Folkston ICE Processing Center, an immigration detention facility near the Florida border.
Guevara has been living in the U.S. for decades. In 2012, a court denied his application for asylum and ordered him deported, but the journalist went on to benefit from administrative closure, a legal procedure that allows an immigration judge to temporarily suspend removal proceedings.
On Aug. 20, Guevara’s attorneys filed a legal challenge against Folkston, officials with the Department of Homeland Security, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, where they described ICE’s treatment of Guevara as retaliatory and as a violation of his constitutional rights.
“The government’s continuing detention of Mr. Guevara on the basis of his journalism is intended to silence him, prevent him from reporting in the future, and retaliate against him for his past speech and reporting, in violation of the First Amendment,” says the filing, which sought to secure the journalist’s release.
The petition was filed in Georgia’s Southern District, the same court attorneys turned to for emergency relief on Friday, following the issuance of the deportation order.
In the past, the government has rejected claims that Guevara’s current predicament stem from his journalistic labor.
“Accusations Mario Guevara was arrested by ICE because he is a journalist are completely FALSE,” the Department of Homeland Security published on its website. “This El Salvador national is in ICE custody because he entered the country illegally in 2004.”
Lopez-Delgado said that, in its arguments in court appealing Guevara’s immigration bond, the government cited Guevara’s behavior while livestreaming and reporting on law enforcement in public spaces as a reason why he should not be released.
“We’re very concerned about the chilling effect that his detention and possible deportation would have on other journalists doing their job in this country,” he added.
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