The following is a transcript of episode 46 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.
K.GUEVARA: Because this is not what they promised.
RAMAZZINI, HOST: What do you mean by this is not what they promised?
K. GUEVARA: Well, because they said they would go after a certain group of people and it’s the people who are criminals but they’re corralling and detaining everyone. Everyone who is undocumented as well as everyone who has legal work authorization and they’re even detaining people who have residency.
RAMAZZINI, HOST: You’re hearing my interview with Katherine Guevara, the daughter of Mario Guevara, a Salvadoran journalist based in Georgia, who was arrested in June on quickly dismissed criminal charges. But the Trump administration secured an order for his deportation. His son said to CNN and in a livestream on Thursday that he is set to be deported today, Friday.
Guevara was the only known journalist detained by ICE on U.S. soil, according to The Bitter Southerner. In this special October episode of Central America in Minutes, we zoom in on a case where attacks on immigrants in Georgia and press freedom collide.
An arrest on camera
Mario Guevara is a journalist who used to work for La Prensa Gráfica, one of El Salvador’s two largest traditional newspapers. In 2004, he moved to the United States, where he and his wife have three children, including two U.S. citizen children and one DACA recipient.
In 2021 and 2022, he was named one of the 50 most influential Latinos in Georgia and he was the subject of a New York Times documentary, Boca del Lobo. He describes himself in court records as a Sunday school teacher and a “key caretaker” for one of his sons, who suffered a stroke. He also runs a news page carrying his own initials, MG News, focused on the “Hispanic community in the Atlanta area.” He even says he liked to do ride-alongs with police officers.
That’s why, in June, Guevara went to cover a protest by the “No Kings” movement, a demonstration against the aggressive immigration raids and other actions of Trump’s return to the White House. He was in Embry Hills, an Atlanta suburb with a large Latino population.
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He was wearing a bulky protest helmet and a big black vest, with PRESS written in white letters across his chest. He was streaming to the Facebook news site that he operates, MG News. At one point, he walked on the sidewalk along with police, far away from protestors.
Then, he caught his own arrest on camera. Police charged at him, so he backpedaled into the street. This is audio from CNN.
M. GUEVARA: Officer, officer. I’m a member of the media, officer.
RAMAZZINI: Officers grab him and his phone falls to the ground.
M. GUEVARA: Let me finish that… Don’t take my phone, please, it’s for my work. Don’t leave that, please. Thank you, officer. Thank you.
RAMAZZINI: Guevara was charged with some really small-time crimes: failing to disperse and standing in the roadway — even though it was the police who backed him into the roadway, and he was alone, not in a crowd. The authorities would later slap on some minor traffic offenses dating from before his arrest.
It was all so small-time, in fact, that each of these charges was dropped almost immediately because, as he was recording, there was evidence that he was not breaking any laws. His lawyer, Scarlet Kim, spoke with El Faro English.
KIM: What happened at the hearing is that the immigration judge decided that he should be released, but ICE decided that they weren’t going to release him, on the basis that his reporting itself was dangerous.”
RAMAZZINI: ICE’s Atlanta Field Office didn’t respond to a request for comment. Kim explains that ICE cannot continue to detain somebody unless they consider them a flight risk or danger to their community. That’s why the government appealed to keep Guevara detained, where he has remained to this day.From that moment on, two ongoing cases had been opened for Guevara: an immigration case over whether to deport him, and a habeas corpus case challenging his ongoing detention as unlawful.
While in custody, ICE filed a motion to reopen his asylum case, which had been denied in 2012. So he made his case before the Bureau of Immigration Appeals, and the appeal was still pending. Kim says that “the government agreed to basically close the removal proceedings against him,” giving him permission to live and work in the United States.
One of his children had petitioned to sponsor him for a green card. “Mario actually has a clear path to residency,” his lawyer said. But this was steamrolled two weeks ago, when the immigration court decided to open his removal case and denied the motion to have a judge review his green card process.
Instead, authorities wanted him removed right away.
Guevara’s lawyers filed emergency motions to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Atlanta, to halt his deportation, but they were denied, according to CNN en Español. Here’s Katherine again talking about her father’s arrest earlier this week.
K. GUEVARA: It’s just added so much stress. Every day I wake up and I'm thinking about it, and I’m thinking about it, every single day ever since it happened — just, you know, not knowing what’s going to happen next, and what the government may come up with now. What are they going to do against him now?
Increased raids in Georgia
The South Atlantic state of Georgia is home to a large immigrant community of about 1.3 million people, about 11 percent of the state’s population. The largest groups of immigrants are from Mexico, India, Guatemala, Jamaica, and Vietnam, in that order, according to the American Immigration Council.
On April 8, ICE reported an interagency effort to arrest undocumented immigrants, with a focus on alleged criminal offenders. It’s a real acronym soup of agencies: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and United States Marshalls Service.
These moves in Georgia have even caused diplomatic trouble: One of the largest raids this year took place on September 4, targeting a Hyundai-LG battery factory. They detained at least 475 workers, many of whom were South Koreans with residency papers. Others were from Mexico and Colombia.
According to The New York Times, officials admitted that at least one worker was legally employed but still forced him to leave the country. The South Koreans agreed to invest $350 million in projects to reduce tariffs imposed by Trump. But they say the operation may jeopardize their investments.
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As for the ICE raids, the agency has reported increased arrests this year across the state. These were the subject of coverage by Mario Guevara in his outlet, MG News.
His imminent deportation also highlights another trend on the rise: Assaults of journalists in the United States had already reached a four-year high by August, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Most were struck by police while covering anti-deportation protests.
Katherine says his case highlights the dismantling of due process, too.
K. GUEVARA: I think there's an erosion of due process and I just don't know what’s going to become of this country if they’re able to take away people’s rights that way.
This special October episode of Central America in Minutes was written by Yuliana Ramazzini and edited by Roman Gressier. Production and soundtrack by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, and iHeart podcast platforms.