Spanish-language journalist arrested while covering protest near Atlanta is deported to El Salvador

ATLANTA — A Spanish-language journalist who had been in immigration detention in Georgia since June was deported Friday to El Salvador.

Mario Guevara, 48, was covering a protest just outside Atlanta on June 14 when local police arrested him and then turned him over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement several days later. His lawyers had been fighting parallel battles in the immigration court and federal court systems trying to get him released.

In a live video posted on Facebook on Friday afternoon, Guevara is seen escorted by El Salvador government officials, exiting a vehicle and hugging a woman who pointed a camera phone at him. “Hello, Mom,” he said into the screen.

He looked toward the sky and said, “My country, my country, my country. Thank God. This isn’t how I wanted to come to my country, but thank God.”

Guevara’s deportation comes after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday declined to halt a deportation order issued last month by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

All criminal charges filed against Guevara since his arrest were dismissed by local prosecutors. His attorneys argued he was being held in retaliation for his work as a journalist and to silence him, in violation of his constitutional rights.

Reporter’s detention criticized

Guevara’s arrest and detention drew condemnation from journalism, press freedom and civil liberties groups. Katherine Jacobsen with the Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday called his deportation “a troubling sign of the deteriorating freedom of the press under the Trump administration.”

“It is shameful that the U.S. government is deporting Guevara, the first time that CPJ has documented this type of retaliation related to reporting activity,” she said in an emailed statement.

Department of Homeland Security officials have consistently rejected the idea that Guevara was being punished for his work, maintaining that he was in the country illegally.

Guevara fled El Salvador two decades ago out of fear and amassed a big audience as a journalist in the Atlanta area. He worked for years for Mundo Hispanico, a Spanish-language newspaper, before starting a digital news outlet called MG News last year. He was livestreaming video on social media from a “No Kings” rally protesting President Trump’s administration when police in DeKalb County arrested him.

He often arrived at scenes where ICE or other law enforcement agencies were active and regularly livestreamed what he saw on social media.

Video from his arrest shows Guevara wearing a red shirt under a protective vest with “PRESS” across his chest. He is heard telling a police officer, “I’m a member of the media, officer.” He was standing on a sidewalk with other journalists, with no sign of big crowds or confrontations around him.

The charges against him in DeKalb County and charges filed in neighboring Gwinnett County after his arrest were dismissed. An immigration judge in July granted him bond, but he remained in custody while the government appealed.

An immigration judge in 2012 denied Guevara’s bid to remain in the U.S. He appealed that ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which hears appeals of immigration court rulings, but that appeal had not been decided when prosecutors agreed to administratively close the case. His lawyers say he had authorization to live and work in the U.S. for the last 13 years.

Shortly after Guevara entered ICE custody in June, the government asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen that old immigration case. His lawyers didn’t oppose that move, but they asked that the case be sent back to the lower immigration court because he now has a pending application for a visa supported by his adult U.S. citizen son.

The Board of Immigration Appeals last month agreed to reopen the case, dismissed Guevara’s appeal and declined to return the case to the lower immigration court. It also ordered him deported to El Salvador and dismissed the government’s appeal of the bond ruling, saying it is now moot.

Guevara’s lawyers appealed to the 11th Circuit and asked that court to halt the deportation order while the appeal was pending.

Guevara’s lawyers argue that the Board of Immigration Appeals ruling and the subsequent refusal by the 11th Circuit to stay his deportation order are based on incorrect information.

A separate case challenged the constitutionality of Guevara’s detention in immigration custody and remains pending in a federal court. His lawyers argued he was being punished for his journalism work and asked a judge to order him immediately released and order that he not be deported while that case was pending.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Elliot Spagat contributed to this report.