The ACLU called Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s continued detention of Atlanta-area journalist Mario Guevara an act of retaliation for his reporting on immigration raids, according to a federal petition filed on Thursday.
Guevara, a Salvadorian immigrant who has been in the United States for more than 20 years, was arrested on 14 June by a police officer in suburban Atlanta while covering the “No Kings” day protests in a neighborhood with a high density of immigrants. Despite all charges being dropped, Guevara has been in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention in south Georgia for almost two months, the only journalist in the US imprisoned as a consequence of their work today, the ACLU said.
Guevara founded MG News, a social media-driven news organization that has become increasingly important to his Spanish-speaking audience for his coverage of Ice activities in metro Atlanta. As he was being arrested, Guevara was livestreaming on Facebook to more than a million followers.
“The government’s continuing detention of Mr Guevara on the basis of his journalism is intended to silence him, prevent him from reporting in the future, and retaliate against him for his past speech and reporting, in violation of the first amendment,” the filing in the Brunswick, Georgia, courthouse states. “The government’s continuing detention of Mr Guevara also violates the substantive due process clause of the fifth amendment because it has no legitimate objective and is punitive.”
Guevara has no criminal history and has been issued a work permit. An immigration judge administratively closed an order for his deportation a decade ago. The oldest of his two children who are US citizens has sponsored his green card application.
After his arrest in June, DeKalb county prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charges against Guevara almost immediately. The sheriff’s office of neighboring Gwinnett county – taking issue with his livestreaming a prostitution arrest a month earlier – filed misdemeanor traffic charges shortly after Guevara’s arrest. Gwinnett prosecutors dropped those charges days later.
Nonetheless, Guevara is still in the Folkston Ice detention center and faces removal.
An immigration judge issued a $7,500 bond for Guevara in June, but immigration enforcement officials appealed that bond decision and it is now on hold with no date set to hear the appeal. The ACLU filing attempts to induce the federal court to intervene.
Referring to the bond hearing in June, the ACLU noted that the immigration judge recognized the first amendment implications of his detention. The judge said in his bond order that “if respondent was acting as a journalist, he is protected by freedom of speech as detailed in the constitution and longstanding, precedential case law”, and noted that “reporting on Ice raids in the community, as respondent has done, is a national concern and many other journalists across the nation are also reporting on this issue”.
Immigration enforcement officials have argued in court that Guevara presents a danger to the community because he livestreams, records and publishes law enforcement activities and shares his reporting with the public. The ACLU filing details Guevara’s extensive cooperation with law enforcement over the years, and notes that a metro Atlanta law enforcement officer testified on his behalf at the bond hearing.
In its filing, the ACLU argues that it is “highly unusual” for the government to appeal an immigration judge’s decision to grant bond when someone has no significant criminal history and presents strong evidence that he’s not a danger to the community.
“The government generally reserves bond appeals, and especially stays, for cases involving serious criminal conduct, clear evidence of danger to the community or major flight risk,” the ACLU wrote, adding that the government relies almost exclusively on “Mr Guevara’s reporting as justification for his continued detention”.
The ACLU noted that immigration officials presented Guevara’s live stream of a Gwinnett county sheriff’s office operation in its argument against issuing a bond in July. “The livestreaming videos that formed the basis for the misdemeanor traffic violations are no longer available on the MG News or Mr Guevara’s Facebook pages,” the ACLU filing states. “Neither Mr Guevara nor an employee of MG News removed these videos from these Facebook pages. Mr Guevara is not aware of how or why the videos were removed.”
The petition asks for the court to demand an answer to the petition within three days, for Guevara’s bond case to be removed to federal court, for the stay on his bond to be lifted, and for the court to declare that Ice’s effort to continue detention violates the first amendment and the due process clause of the fifth amendment.
