The concerns grow among the supporters of freedom of the press and civil rights lawyers on the fall of a Spanish -speaking journalist who fights the deportation from Georgia.
The committee for the protection of journalists (CPJ) claims that Mario Guevara is currently the only reporter in the United States who is sleeping in a prison cell for his job, and the non -profit organization has not broken any words about what he happens during a press conference in Georgia Capitol on Tuesday.
“This is an obvious attack on freedom of the press, the first change and the right of the communities, especially the communities with a migration background, to be informed,” said José Zamorra, regional director for America at CPJ. “These communities rely on voices like Mario to understand the world around them.”
Free Press, Georgia First Amendment Foundation, ACLU from Georgia, state legislature and Guevara's two adult children and lawyers were also there to reaffirm the demand for his release from immigration, most of which he supposedly spent in isolation.
“My father … persecuted stories that were important, stories that tell the truth about immigration, about injustice, about people who are normally ignored,” said his daughter Katherine Guevara. “He always believed that journalism was a form of service.”
Katherine Guevara said she was angry and disappointed by the US government because she tried to “punish” her father, a feeling that was also shared by her brother.
“We grew up to believe that in this country the freedom of expression of language was important that journalism was important that hard work and honesty meant something, but none of this seems to be important at the moment,” said Oscar Guevara. “I would like to say to them in power: they not only block a journalist. They blocked a father, a husband, a man who spent his life with it.”
Guevara's deportation battle against his home El Salvador has not yet been completed. So far we know the following.
Who is Mario Guevara and what is his immigration status?
The 47 -year -old Guevara fled with his family with El Salvador and said that he was beaten and repeatedly bothered for the newspaper La Prensa Grafica because of his work as a political reporter.
He then built a trade fair that covered as a somewhat controversial journalist for immigration in the Atlanta area. In 2019, Guevara announced that the people in the community sometimes accused him of working with ICE or the police and described him as a “traitor”.
Guevara worked for the largest Spanish-speaking newspaper in the state, Mundo Hispanico for years before starting his own digital news outlet called MG News in which his son now works as a photo journalist.
One of Guevara's lawyers, Giovanni Diaz, said that he joined a tourist visa in 2004 and had written a pending application for Green Card, which is sponsored by his son, but the US Ministry of Homeland Security (DHS) wrote in social media and in court files that he is illegal here.
This could be due to the fact that although an earlier immigration case against Guevara was administered more than a decade ago, according to the fact that DHS recently started to reopen these cases and possibly reinstalled people into the distance procedure.
How did Guevara get in federal custody?
Guevara was arrested on June 14th in Dekalb County when he reported on a “No Kings” protest in Dekalb County, which he held on a live stream.
The video shows that Guevara wears a helmet and a vest and identifies it as a “press” when a group of officers in turmoil approaches him while he is on the sidewalk and steps on the Chamblee Tucker Road in Embry Hills.
After Guevara arrested and booked to Dekalb County's prison, he was accused of having hindered the illegal assembly and not properly entered a road. All three offenses were dropped later, and Guevara received a signature bond, but at that time the immigration and customs authority (ICE) had already given a stop to hand it over to its custody.
Guevara was then brought to the Folkston Ice Processing Center in Southeast Georgia or about a five -hour trip from his family.
In addition, the Gwinnett County's office announced on June 20, when Guevara was already in ice custody that it had received arrest warrants against him because he was distracted by distracted driving not to follow a traffic control device and ride ruthless driving for incidents that performed with him one month after her encounter.
The agency still did not answer any questions from Wab at the time, but a spokesman said that it was “obliged to maintain local, state and federal laws”. The Gwinnett County, Lisamarie Bristol, announced on July 10 that she would not pursue these charges because the first two took place on private property, and the third was lacking sufficient evidence for a conviction.
Can Guevara be released on Bond?
At an immigration hearing on July 1, judge James Ward Guevara granted a bond of $ 7,500.
Then the case became more complicated.
Usually Guevara's family would have paid the amount defined by the judge and he would have been released so that he could stay in the United States while his case played in court. Instead, Guevara was transferred to the Gwinnett County prison, where he received a bond of $ 3,900 and was taken back in ice custody because his immigration bond had not been paid for.
Guevara was moved to Floyd County's prison, about 65 miles northwest of Atlanta, where the Sheriff's office has an agreement on the ICE people before he was brought to the former federal prison in Atlanta and is now known as a American prison in Atlanta. Diaz said this was the only time that he was not isolated and was blackmailed there.
The reporter is back in the Folkston Ice Processing Center until an appellate court decides whether a bond should be granted after the government submitted the appointment and a stay and argues that it should not be released because it is a threat to the community.
“I will be paraphrased what my customer's Ice Officer said,” said Diaz, “but they explained that a judge granted a bond, but they have not allowed it to not allow it.”
Where does Guevara's case fit under Trump's second term?
For Nora Benavidez, Senior Counsel and board member of Free Press and Georgia First Amendment Foundation, Guevara's case “feels the disturbing path that the United States are” by imprisoning people like Mahmoud Khalil and not making journalists from the White House and withdrawing millions of dollars from public media.
“Even in our corporate media areas, companies such as CBS do programming like the Stephen Colbert Show because he critically spoke about the way CBS capitulated to Donald Trump,” said Benavidez. “We live in a climate of fear and retaliation. … weaken our community relationships, the truth is undermined as the foundation of our democracy, and I believe that Mr. Guevara's case is really just the spearhead.”
As already reported by the WA immigration report, Emily Wu Pearson, the Trump government continued its advance of increasing the deportation figures, also by ICE to use Medicaid registration data to search for people without legal status in Georgia and other countries.
A real estate lawyer in Atlanta recently announced the Associated Press that ICE is asking the landlords to disclose the personal data of the tenants so that they find people to deport them.
The non -profit thought factory -migration policy institute estimates that there are almost 340,000 people in Georgia without legal status, many of which have been living here for more than a decade.
What's next for Mario Guevara?
Diaz said he weighed whether a federal action against ICE and all local law enforcement authorities should submit, which may have coordinated the result of the hearing of the Court of Appeal in connection with the bond of Guevara.
“We are confident, based on the fact that the law is a lot on our side, that we will ultimately resolve our stay and that we will ultimately win the appointment,” said Diaz, noting that the schedule is unclear from everything.
Another possible reason why Diaz said that the lawyers could sue was on Guevara's cell phone, which was confiscated and was not returned after he was brought to Gwinnett County's prison.
“Everyone says:” We see no arrest warrant in the system “, so one of two things happened,” said Diaz. “Another agency that did not contact us – US lawyers, ice cream, someone else has it – or the phone was just stolen. So we are currently finding out exactly what happened to his phone. I think it is for the course, given the behavior of the government from the beginning than par.”
Diaz said Guevara was still in a good mood and was based on his faith and family.
“He is an incredibly positive person,” said Diaz. “But I think there are certain things that shaken it into the core. He was shaken into the core because [this is the] Land that he continues to love [and] A country that he continues to believe in the institutions [of]. He has a conscience. “
Guevara asked the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, to intervene.
