A week after a federal immigration judge ordered his release on bond, Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara still remains in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.
He was initially arrested June 14, while covering an anti-ICE protest in DeKalb County. Since then, he’s been shuffled through five Georgia jails and ICE detention centers, even though the initial DeKalb charges were dropped.
Doraville police arrested Guevara on three misdemeanor obstruction charges on June 14, and the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office handed him over to ICE from the county jail on June 18 for deportation proceedings. A 21-year U.S. resident, Guevara is legally authorized to work in the United States while his green card application is pending.
That started a month-long legal odyssey for Guevara, who’s been transferred from the Folkston ICE Processing Center to Gwinnett and Floyd County jails, and now the Federal Correctional Institution in southeast Atlanta.
“We’re really concerned that this all began when Guevara was out doing his job as a journalist and covering a local protest, and the legal rigmarole that he has been put through since is alarming, to say the least,” said Katherine Jacobsen, the U.S., Canada and Caribbean coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Guevara’s 25 days in custody so far makes him the only journalist currently imprisoned in the United States after being arrested due to their work.
His attorneys said the unusual legal hurdles he is facing are far different from typical immigration cases. “It’s about a chilling effect, and it’s about deterrence, and it’s about scaring the community — that’s what it seems like at this point,” said his lawyer, Giovanni Díaz.
A tangle of charges and transfers
The DeKalb Solicitor General dismissed the original misdemeanor charges against Guevara from the protest on June 25.
But on June 17 — just one day before ICE took custody of the journalist — the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office filed new misdemeanor traffic charges for reckless driving, running a stoplight, and unlawful use of a wireless device. They stemmed from a May 20 incident, when Guevara was reporting on law enforcement activity, for allegedly “following unmarked law enforcement vehicles while streaming on Facebook Live,” according to the arrest report.
“It is very uncommon to have warrants sworn out a month after the fact,” Díaz said. “It’s very, very odd. It’s very, very concerning. It’s not normal.”
On July 1, a federal immigration judge set a $7,500 bond for Guevara. His family attempted to post bond online three times, but each attempt was rejected.
When his family and attorneys visited the ICE Field Office in Atlanta the next day to pay in person, they were told ICE had obtained a stay on the bond, and Guevara had been transferred to Gwinnett County for the traffic charges.
“I’ve never seen the government file a stay of a bond order for someone with pending charges,” Díaz said, particularly pending traffic violations.
Once in Gwinnett custody, Díaz said, Guevara was presented a warrant to seize and search his phone. However, Guevara’s attorneys still haven’t seen the warrant, and Díaz said they don’t know if it came from Gwinnett or ICE.
After posting a $3,900 bond for the Gwinnett charges, Guevara was transferred again — this time to Floyd County, which has a partnership agreement with ICE to hold non-citizens whom ICE seeks to deport.
By Monday, Guevara’s attorneys learned ICE had transferred him to the Federal Correctional Institution in southeast Atlanta. “It seems like these law enforcement agencies have an interest in keeping him detained,” Díaz said. “It seems like there’s a coordination between jurisdictions.”
For now, it appears Guevara will remain in ICE custody until the Board of Immigration Appeals reviews ICE’s appeal of the federal immigration judge’s July 1 bond order.
‘I am being persecuted’
In a statement posted by Guevara’s news outlet, MG News, he called on El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, to intercede on his behalf. “I am being persecuted for having carried out my journalistic work while covering operations in the streets,” Guevara wrote while incarcerated.
In nearly 22 years living in the United States, Guevara wrote, he has never been arrested before, has paid taxes, and supports a family — including a special needs son. He has also notified the Salvadoran Consulate in Chicago of his ongoing imprisonment.
“Mario Guevara is in the country illegally,” said Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement to Atlanta Civic Circle. “The Trump administration is committed to restoring the rule of law and common sense to our immigration system, and will continue to fight for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens who have no right to be in this country.”
For Jacobsen of the Committee to Protect Journalists, it’s telling that Guevara is appealing for assistance to El Salvador, which ranks 135 out of 180 in the Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index. “To see a journalist in the United States appealing to a government where we know the press freedom situation is not good gives one pause for thought,” she said.
What is ICE’s goal?
Press freedom watchdogs said the U.S. government’s highly unusual treatment of Guevara appears to be an attempt to intimidate reporters exercising their First Amendment rights.
“This kind of legal back-and-forth – dragging him from jail to an [ICE] holding facility and back again — raises a lot of questions about the intent behind what the government is actually doing,” Jacobsen said. “What is the goal? How is this a good use of taxpayer money?”
“It should never be this hard to find someone in our judicial system, especially after a court granted the person’s release,” said Nora Benavidez, a First Amendment attorney who is monitoring Guevara’s case.
“Anything less than immediate release from [detention] is a continued assault on Mr. Guevara’s freedom and sends a chilling message to others who might want to exercise their constitutional rights,” Benvidez said.