US appeals court orders deportation of Atlanta journalist detained by Ice

"Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) say the El Salvador native could be put on a plane at any moment, despite an immigration judge's initial order to grant his release on bond and a clear legal path to residency. His attorney said they were filing an emergency petition seeking relief. Local police in suburban Atlanta arrested Guevara at a No Kings Day protest in June on charges of failing to disperse and standing in the roadway."

"While those charges, and other unrelated traffic charges laid later, were dropped almost immediately, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has held him in detention while seeking his deportation. The Committee to Protect Journalists noted that his detention and potential deportation was a result of his reporting on immigration and he had been detained in direct retaliation for his reporting."

"Guevara has been in the US for more than 20 years. While his petition for asylum was rejected in 2012, his deportation was administratively closed in an appeal, and he has both a work permit and a pending application for a green card, his attorney Giovanni Diaz said. He has been held for more than three months at the Folkston Ice processing center in south Georgia, the same detention facility Ice held 475 workers at a battery plant construction site earlier this month."

Mario Guevara, an El Salvador native and journalist, faces imminent deportation after an immigration appeals court closed his case and ordered removal. Local police arrested him at a June No Kings Day protest; initial charges and later traffic charges were dropped, yet ICE detained him while pursuing deportation. Guevara has lived in the United States for over twenty years, holds a work permit, and has a pending green card application despite a 2012 asylum denial and an administrative closure of deportation in an appeal. He has been held for more than three months at the Folkston ICE processing center; attorneys have filed emergency habeas and other appeals.

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