Spanish-language journalist to be turned over to Ice after protest arrest
Mario Guevara, a prominent Spanish-language journalist in metro Atlanta who frequently covers Immigration and customs enforcement raids, will be turned over to Ice detention after being arrested by local police while covering the 'No Kings' protests.
Guevara, 47, was born in El Salvador and has been in the United States for more than 20 years. He recorded his own arrest Saturday during a raucous street protest in the Embry Hills area of north DeKalb county, an Atlanta suburban neighborhood with a large Latino population. The protest ended with riot police throwing teargas and marching protesters down the street after declaring an unlawful assembly.
About 35 minutes into the video Guevara was live-streaming on Facebook to more than 1 million people, he can be first seen on the sidewalk, then backing away from a police officer approaching him. As he backed into the street, two other police officers immediately arrested him.
'By any chance, are we still live?' he asks in Spanish, in the darkness of a van at the scene. 'Someone please call the lawyer Giovanni Díaz, my lawyer, so he can pull the strings he needs to pull. Yes, we're still live, right? Please, someone let lawyer Giovanni Díaz know what just happened.'
The arresting officer is from the Doraville police department, a municipality which holds part of Atlanta's famed Buford Highway strip of immigrant-oriented businesses. A second officer approaching Guevara in the video is wearing a gas mask and cannot be identified from his uniform.
Police charged Guevara as a pedestrian improperly entering a roadway, obstruction of a law enforcement officer and unlawful assembly. A municipal judge released Guevara on Monday on a recognisance bond – customary with misdemeanor charges. But jail staff said he would be transferred instead to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The law office Diaz & Gaeta Law, which represents Guevara, declined to comment. A request for information from Doraville police has gone unanswered.
Police facilitated demonstrator's march at an earlier protest in the nearby suburban city of Tucker, in which thousands of people walked across an overpass above I-285–Atlanta's main ring highway–with banners and signs. The earlier 'No Kings' protest had been organized and promoted by Indivisible and 50501.
Conversely, organizers from the Party of Socialism and Liberation led the Embry Hills protest. According to a release from the DeKalb Police Department, police declared an unlawful assembly after they believed marchers would attempt to approach the highway on the on-ramp.
Police arrested eight people including Guevara at the protest on Saturday.
Ted Terry, a DeKalb county commissioner, asked the county's staff to investigate the circumstances around the use of teargas at the event.
'The decision to deploy teargas – particularly in a neighborhood context with nearby homes and businesses – raises serious questions about the proportionality and justification of the county's response to peaceful civil action,' he wrote.
A spokesperson for Ice in Atlanta could not immediately confirm the conditions of the immigration hold or whether Guevara faces deportation.
As a journalist with Diario CoLatino in El Salvador, he fled the country in 2004 one step ahead of threats from leftwing paramilitary groups. It took him seven years to get his first asylum hearing before a judge, the journalist told Spanish-language wire service Agencia EFE in the Los Angeles-based publication La Opinión in 2012. He described the arrest of his wife after an error in the immigration system. 'The hardest part for me was seeing my three children cry as she was taken away, and me being powerless to give them the comfort and protection they need,' he said in Spanish in the interview.
Guevara has worked for Spanish-language media such as Atlanta Latino and Mundo Hispanico in metro Atlanta since, reporting on criminal justice issues. Guevara's reporting has won awards, including an Emmy. His reporting has uncovered corruption at the Honduran consulate in Georgia and documented the effect of immigration enforcement around Atlanta.
He founded MGNews in June last year, focusing on immigration enforcement, and quickly built a sizable following. At the time of his arrest Saturday, Guevara was live-streaming on Facebook to more than 1 million viewers, outdrawing CNN and Fox News combined on a Saturday afternoon.
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