A Spanish-language journalist known for documenting immigration raids could face deportation proceedings after police arrested him on charges of obstructing officers and unlawful assembly as he was covering a weekend protest outside Atlanta.
Mario Guevara, who fled El Salvador two decades ago and built a large following as an independent journalist covering immigration in the Atlanta area, was broadcasting live on social media Saturday at a protest in DeKalb County when officers arrested him.
The video shows Guevara standing on a sidewalk with other journalists, filming police in riot gear walking through a parking lot, before he stepped into the street as officers approached.
“I’m a member of the media, officer,” Guevara tells a police officer right before he’s arrested. The video shows Guevara wearing a bright red shirt under a protective vest with “PRESS” printed across his chest.
Guevara was jailed in DeKalb County, which includes parts of Atlanta, on charges of obstructing police, unlawful assembly and improperly entering a roadway. His attorney, Giovanni Diaz, said a judge granted Guevara bond on Monday, but he was kept in jail after Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed an extra 48-hour hold on him.
“He’s not a legal permanent resident, but he has authorization to remain and work in the United States,” Diaz said in a phone interview, adding that Guevara has an adult son who is a U.S. citizen and an application pending for his green card.
If ICE agents take custody of Guevara, Diaz said, his case would move to federal immigration court for potential deportation proceedings.
Diaz insisted that Guevara has a strong case for being allowed to stay in the U.S. But he said that President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement has added “another level of anxiety.”
A spokesperson for the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office, Cynthia Williams, confirmed that Guevara was being held for immigration authorities. An ICE spokesperson in Atlanta did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Guevara fled El Salvador with his family in 2004, saying he was beaten and repeatedly harassed because of his work as a political reporter for the newspaper La Prensa Grafica. They immigrated to Georgia, where Guevara worked as a reporter for Georgia’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, Mundo Hispanico, before launching his own online news site, MGNews.
Guevara’s coverage of immigration raids, often documented live with help from a network of tipsters, has earned him a big social media following that exceeds 782,000 on Facebook alone.
Like hundreds of communities across the U.S., DeKalb County saw crowds gather Saturday to protest the Trump administration. County officials said in a news release that police were dispatched to confront protestors marching toward an interstate onramp. Officers fired tear gas and made at least eight arrests.
Guevara was photographed at that protest by news outlets including The Associated Press. The video he recorded leading up to his arrest shows him standing beside a shopping center a distance from police vehicles blocking a roadway. Guevara doesn’t appear to be near any crowds or confrontations when police arrested him.
Diaz said Guevara is well-known by local and federal authorities after his years of documenting immigration enforcement.
“He’s been doing this type of work for 20-plus years, and now he gets detained,” Diaz said. “It’s concerning. He’s a member of the press. And he doesn’t seem to be committing any crime.”
___ Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.