Editor’s note: This story originally appeared at TRUTHOUT and can be viewed here.
Emmy award-winning journalist Mario Guevara was deported today to El Salvador – a country he fled over 20 years ago — in retaliation for filming law enforcement activities, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ.)
On Tuesday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied an emergency request to temporarily block the Board of Immigration Appeals’ order to deport Guevara. The three judges on the immigration appeals board were all appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi under President Donald Trump.
“Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting,” the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a post on BlueSky. “This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.”
“Words cannot begin to describe the loss and devastation my family feels,” said Mario’s son, Oscar, in a statement released on Thursday. “I am in utter shock and disbelief the government has punished my father for simply doing his life’s work of journalism.”
“He is the reason our home feels like home,” he continued. Oscar said after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor, “it was my dad who centered me, who drove me to my medical appointments, and who lifted me up.”
In 2004, Guevara came to the United States from El Salvador to escape persecution for his journalism. He settled in Georgia and continued his work as a reporter. Over the course of his career in the United States, he won numerous awards, including an Emmy, and was named one of the 50 Most Influential Latinos in Georgia. In 2019, his reporting was the subject of a New York Times documentary, and in 2024, he founded his own news organization, MGNews.
In June, officers arrested him while he was reporting at a “No Kings” protest against Trump, even though he was wearing a vest with “PRESS” written on the front and back. Guevara was taken to the local jail and then placed in ICE custody. All charges were dropped, but the government fought to deport him, arguing that he was a danger to the community based on his livestreams and videos of law enforcement activities.
“I was following them,” Guevara told the Altanta-Journal Constitution in a phone interview published in July. “I was showing their faces when they were arresting immigrants.”
He said that during his detention, officers have said to him, “You gave me a hard time, Mario. Hey, remember me?”
Over the course of his more than 100 days of imprisonment, he has been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, confined to his cell for 22 hours a day, according to the ACLU.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) previously told Truthout in an email that Guevara was in custody because he entered the country illegally in 2004, which is false. Guevara came to the U.S. on a B1 visa, is authorized to work in the United States, and has a social security number. He is also eligible for a green card.
Local lawmakers, human rights groups, and press freedom organizations condemned Guevara’s detention and called for his immediate release. On Tuesday, more than a hundred scholars, journalists, and writers sent a letter to DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to demand his release. Signatories included Art Spiegelman, Arundhati Roy, David Remnick, Ibram X. Kendi, Jelani Cobb, John Cusack, Judith Butler, Judy Blume, and Julianne Moore.
In response to the news that Guevara would be deported on Friday, Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in a statement that Guevara was “ripped from his family and community because the Trump administration punishes journalists to protect its own power.”
“The only thing that journalists like Guevara threaten is the government’s chokehold on information it doesn’t want the public to know,” he continued.
Amnesty International USA’s Executive Director Paul O’Brien said in a statement that deporting Guevara “sends a chilling and dangerous message: that journalists can be detained, silenced, and deported simply for doing their jobs.”
“The already cruel immigration system is being used as a testing ground for widespread authoritarian practices under Trump, and now, with the deportation of Mario Guevara, it is being weaponized to silence a journalist,” he continued.
Last month, Guevara penned an essay about his imprisonment.
“I have to remain strong and confident that the United States still has some caring and decency left and that in the end justice will prevail,” he wrote.
“Hopefully, soon all my tears and my family’s tears will be wiped away, and we can have fun and smile, triumphant, as we did before, together and in absolute freedom.”
