The son of journalist Mario Guevara, Oscar Guevara, is pleading for his father's release after he had been in immigration detention for more than 100 days.
On Tuesday, Oscar said that his father had been his primary caregiver and source of strength since undergoing surgery for a brain tumor. In a news conference held on Zoom, the son said that after his procedure in 2021, he said that his father, an Emmy-winning digital journalist, was the one who kept him going.
ICE Detention of Journalist
Before his detention, Mario had work authorization through a 13-year-old asylum claim. He was initially arrested on June 14 while covering the "No Kings" rally in Georgia. He is still in custody despite the dismissal of all criminal charges against him and an immigration judge ordering that he be released on bond.
Oscar is the eldest son and is a U.S. citizen, and has a sister, 27-year-old Katherine, and a 14-year-old brother. The journalist's case has since drawn widespread attention from the free press and civil rights groups across the United States, according to NBC News.
They argued that Mario is the only journalist who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). They see the development as an attempt by the current government to deport him as retribution by the Trump administration for negative media coverage.
Scarlet Kim, a senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that the journalist's detention is a "true five-alarm fire" for press freedom in the country. This is particularly true for non-citizen journalists and any journalist who covers law enforcement activity.
Appealing a Judge's Order
Despite a judge's previous order, the Board of Immigration Appeals reopened Mario's 13-year-old immigration case. Officials also declined to let him out on bond and declined a motion to give back the removal proceedings to a previous judge who covered the journalist's green-card case, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In a social media post on X, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Mario was in ICE custody because he is in the country illegally. It added that Georgia police arrested the journalist for willful obstruction after refusing to comply with local authorities' orders to move out of the middle of the street.
Mario's attorney, Giovanni Diaz, said that they were filing an emergency petition seeking the relief. He added that his client had both a work permit and a pending application for a green card, as per The Guardian.
