ACLU seeks emergency relief for journalist in ICE custody after US immigration board advances deportation efforts News
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
ACLU seeks emergency relief for journalist in ICE custody after US immigration board advances deportation efforts

The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking emergency relief to prevent the deportation of a journalist after the US Board of Immigration Appeals ended bond proceedings in the case on Friday. Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara was arrested during a June anti-Trump demonstration in Georgia while livestreaming immigration officials and law enforcement. The ACLU claims Guevara “could be put on a deportation plane at any moment.”

State charges against Guevara of unlawful assembly, obstruction of a law enforcement officer, and walking on or along the roadway were dropped in July, but Guevara has remained in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) despite being allowed to work in the US. ICE lawyers have argued that Guevara’s filming of their agents “endangered the safety of undercover officers,” and the agency maintains that Guevara is in the country unlawfully, saying he illegally entered the US in 2004. However, the ACLU claimed that Guevara arrived legally on a B-1 visa and that he is currently eligible for permanent residency through his son.

Guevara was previously subjected to removal proceedings from 2007 to 2012, but the BIA chose to close them at its discretion, effectively allowing him to remain in the US. Friday’s BIA decision, however, says that a previous removal order against Guevara is final.

Despite the BIA’s decision, Guevara’s case is still open in federal court, where his lawyers have filed an emergency motion to stay his deportation. The BIA is an administrative tribunal under the executive branch of the US government, so its proceedings are separate from those of federal courts.

President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown continues to receive scrutiny both at home and abroad, with many observers saying that Trump’s due process and deportation efforts regularly circumvent due process safeguards. South Korea launched an investigation Monday into immigration officials’ detention of more than 300 of its citizens at a Georgia battery plant, and on the same day, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker criticized a lack of transparency surrounding the shooting of a man by ICE agents. California even passed a bill preventing local and federal law enforcement from wearing face coverings, but it has not been tested in court.

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