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Atlanta-based reporter has been in jail for over a month, for the U.S. crime of Journalism [1]
['Ruben Bolling']
Date: 2025-07-21
Mario Guevara, a Salvadoran journalist who has lived in the United States for over twenty years, was arrested by Doraville, Georgia, police while covering the No Kings Day protest on June 14 in that town. Since then, he has been shuttled among various jail cells in Georgia, with ICE manipulating and defying the legal system to keep him incarcerated.
Here is a link to an article by George Chidi in The Guardian.
Guevara has no criminal record and is not charged with a crime. He was arrested while filming an ICE conflict with a crowd of protesters, and then held on ostensible charges of traffic violations from a month earlier, which have now been dropped. Yet he remains in prison.
"Mario Guevara is well known – sometimes liked sometimes not – but definitely well known by law enforcement agencies, particularly in DeKalb county and Gwinnett county, and also with federal agents, and particularly immigration agents," [Jerry Gonzales, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials and GALEO Latino Community Development Fund] said. Gonzales, among others, believes this put a target on his back in the current administration. "It seems like law enforcement coordinated and colluded with the federal agents," Gonzales said. Gonzales points to the misdemeanor traffic charges laid by the Gwinnett county sheriff's office shortly after Guevara's arrest in DeKalb county by the Doraville police department as evidence. "The facts and the timeline indicate that pretty clearly to anybody that's been following this," he claimed. "In this regard it's particularly troubling, given that he is a journalist and his situation. He had no reason to have been targeted for his arrest."
"I'm plainly convinced that my situation in this ICE jail is direct retaliation for my coverage," Mario Guevara told @ajc.com in an exclusive interview from the Folkston, Georgia ICE detention center where he is currently detained, despite a judge's bail order. "I haven't committed any crimes." — Alex Ip 葉清霖 (@alexip718.com) 2025-07-20T01:01:34.799Z
Guevara's own livestream of his arrest can be seen in this video.
Guevara's asylum claim was denied by an immigration court judge in 2012. However, the result was that he was not to be deported, and the government issued him a work permit, which he has been living and working under since then.
Lawyers for Guevara and the Committee to Protect Journalists will hold a press conference on Tuesday, July 22, to demand Guevara's release.
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