Mario Guevara is a Georgia-based journalist originally from El Salvador who has been in immigrant detention following his arrest while covering a protest. He now faces imminent removal as his family remains in the United States.
Mario Guevara is a Georgia-based journalist originally from El Salvador who has been in immigrant detention following his arrest while covering a protest. He now faces imminent removal.

A Georgia-based journalist faces imminent deportation months after his arrest while livestreaming a protest, in what human rights and press freedom advocates say sends a “chilling message” for journalists.

Mario Guevara, a 48-year-old Salvadoran national, ran MG News, a Spanish language news outlet in metropolitan Atlanta. When Guevara livestreamed a June “No Kings” protest against President Donald Trump, local police arrested him. He has been held in detention for more than three months.

ICE didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but has previously said Guevara is in the country illegally and thus subject to removal.

An immigration board recently issued a final removal order, based on failing to pay an immigration bond 13 years ago. His lawyers deny the allegation, calling the board’s decision “erroneous” in a letter to a federal judge in Georgia and providing proof of payment and the bond's subsequent cancellation.

"(Immigration and Customs Enforcement) refuses to release me because I represent a headache for them; a rock in their shoe as I exposed the injustices that federal agents committed on the state's streets against members of our vulnerable Latino community," he said in a message in Spanish. "My dedication to my work cost me my freedom."

Court records indicate Guevara is held in the Folkston ICE Processing Center, a privately run facility in southeastern Georgia. Sept. 25 is his birthday, according to a GoFundMe posted by his news outlet.

Advocates point to broader attacks on press freedom in the country.

Human rights group Amnesty International USA called his detainment “arbitrary.” Guevara's imminent deportation sent a “chilling message” that “journalists can be silenced, detained, and even deported for their reporting work," said Paul O’Brien, the group’s executive director, in a statement.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement that Guevara's case had "absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment and any suggestion otherwise is laughable."

"The Trump Administration will continue enforcing the law without apology," she said.

The nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists called the decision a “miscarriage of justice.”

“This is a clear attempt to silence his reporting and livestreaming activity, using immigration law as a pretext to allow for the deportation of a vital voice in the Atlanta metro area,” Katherine Jacobsen, a North American program coordinator for the committee, said in a statement.

Guevara fled his native El Salvador after receiving death threats for his journalism, his lawyer previously told USA TODAY.

For more than two decades, he has lived in the United States, earning an Emmy Award and garnering hundreds of thousands of followers covering growing Latino communities in the South. After the federal Board of Immigration Appeals in 2012 ended removal proceedings against him, he’s obtained work authorization. He recently applied for a green card through his son, an American citizen who turned 21 this year, his lawyers said.

Why was he arrested?

Guevara had been documenting increasing immigration enforcement in the region.

On June 14, Guevara was arrested at an Atlanta-area “No Kings” protest in DeKalb County.

Videos of his arrest show Guevara, in a red shirt with a protective vest reading “PRESS,” live streaming as police faced off against demonstrators. Guevara stood on the sidewalk with other journalists until a police line began moving toward a thinning crowd of protesters. One officer in a parking lot moved toward Guevara. As Guevara moved away, another officer ran toward him and grabbed him, bodycam footage showed.

Guevara can be heard telling an officer in English that he was a member of the press. His livestream continued recording in his pocket as he was taken away in a police vehicle. He called for a lawyer in his stream.

Following his arrest, initial charges of unlawful assembly, obstruction of law enforcement and being a pedestrian on the roadway against Guevara were dropped.

In early July, a Georgia sheriff’s office charged him with separate traffic-related misdemeanors stemming from another incident a month before his arrest at the protest. Those charges were dropped about a week later, yet he remained in detention as ICE began deportation proceedings.

On Sept. 19, the Board of Immigration Appeals ordered Guevara’s removal because he didn't post the voluntary departure bond within five business days in 2012. Guevara's lawyers have provided a 2012 ICE receipt showing Guevara paid the $500 bond to the agency and a 2015 ICE notice that later cancelled the bond. The board's removal order imposes daily civil penalties of $998 for each day Guevara hasn’t left the country.

Guevara has filed a habeas case for his detention before a federal district judge in Georgia.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Human rights, press freedom advocates blast journalist’s impending deportation

Reporting by Eduardo Cuevas, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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