A Latino reporter arrested while covering a protest against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies is now in federal custody and may soon be deported. The journalist’s lawyers say they will challenge his detention and seek his release.
Mario Guevara, 47, was jailed in suburban Atlanta Saturday, June 14, as he live-streamed his coverage of a “No Kings” protest. Guevara, a native of El Salvador, has more than 1 million followers on social media and founded his own news site after working for Spanish-language outlets in Atlanta for two decades.
Current whereabouts unknown
Police in Doraville, Georgia, arrested Guevara on charges of obstructing law enforcement officers, unlawful assembly and improperly entering a roadway as a pedestrian. A judge set bail for his release, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers filed a legal document known as a detainer to keep him in jail until they could transfer him to a federal immigration facility.
Federal officers took him from the jail early Wednesday, June 18, public records show. But his lawyers told The New York Times that neither they nor Guevara’s family know where he was taken.
Guevara, who has lived in the Atlanta area since 2004, does not have legal residency status but has a permit to work in the United States. His lawyers said he also has a Social Security number.
‘Doing his job’ at time of arrest
The lawyers said it was unclear why Guevara was arrested Saturday. An arrest warrant said he ignored instructions to stay off the street and to leave the protest after it had been declared an unlawful assembly, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Police took no other journalists covering the protest into custody.
In a statement, Katherine Jacobsen of the Committee to Protect Journalists called for Guevara’s release.
“Guevara was doing his job and reporting the news at the time of his arrest,” Jacobsen said. “It is alarming that the charges he is now facing could be a pretext to begin deportation proceedings against him.”
