Media Watch: Free speech groups denounce deportation of Emmy-award winning journalist for live-streaming ICE raids and protests

By Miriam Raftery

October 5, 2025 (Atlanta, GA) – In an action that has drawn condemnation from journalism and civil liberties organizations, the Department of Homeland Security on Friday deported Mario Guevara, an Emmy award-winning journalist, to El Salvador in retaliation for his live-streaming of ICE raids.  

“The government kept Mario unlawfully detained for weeks because of his vital reporting on law enforcement activity. His deportation is a devastating and tragic outcome for a father and celebrated journalist,” said Scarlet Kim, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Speech, Privacy, & Technology Project, in an ACLU statement. “Journalists should not have to fear government retaliation, including prolonged detention, for reporting on government activity, and showing up to work should not result in your family being torn apart. Mario’s treatment should terrify any person in this country that cares about a free press.”

Filming police is protected by the First Amendment according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which cites numerous court cases that have ruled in favor of journalists filming law enforcement activities, though the Supreme Court has not ruled on this issue.

Guevara was arrested while live-streaming a No Kings protest against President Donald Trump in June.  He was charged with unlawful assembly obstruction and being a pedestrian on a roadway—charges that were all dropped by a judge, who ordered his release. But local police had turned him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which instead detained him for 100 days despite a judge ordering his release, claiming that his past and potentially future filming of law enforcement activities presented a risk to their work. The ACLU filed for emergency relief to block his deportation, but a judge did not grant the request.

Guevara came to the U.S. in 2004 on a tourist visa and applied for asylum in 2005. He fled his native El Salvador after he was attacked and received death threats over his reporting, he told CNN.  According to Reporters Without Borders, which tracks treatment of journalists worldwide, journalists regular face threats and seizure of their equipment in El Salvador.  Prior to 2006, some journalists were killed and as recently as 2022, journalist Victor Barahone was detained and tortured. President Nayib Bukele “has attacked and threatened journalists critical of his government,” according to Reporters Without Borders.

“The only thing that journalists like Guevara threaten is the government’s chokehold on information it doesn’t want the public to know,” said Seith Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Dozens of press freedom groups and more than 100 leading writers, journalists and scholars called for Guevara’s release. A letter signed by dozens of press freedom groups led by the Committee to Protect Journalists, written before the deportation order, said Guevara’s detention “sends a chilling message to all journalists, citizens, and residents who record law enforcement, report on government activities, and seek to report the truth. This concerns all of us as a blatant attack on the First Amendment and press freedom. Livestreaming and filming police is not a crime.”

Guevara is the founder of MG News, which covers Georgia’s Latino community and has livestreamed ICE raids to hundreds of thousands of followers.  Previously during his 21 years in the U.S. legally, he worked for Mundo Hispanico, Georgia’s largest Spanish-language newspaper.

According to the ACLU, Guevara’s wife and three children were not allowed to even say goodbye to him before he was deported.  His son, Oscar Guevara, suffered brain damage from a stroke and brain tumor. He has relied on his father to help him with his health issues, including driving him to medical appointments.

“Words cannot begin to describe the loss and devastation my family feels,”  Oscar Guevara said, according to an ACLU press release.  “My family has been torn apart for no good reason, and I can only hope that we can one day be reunited.”

Guevara arrived in El Salvador on Friday, where he spoke with journalists, CNN reported.  “I feel sad, but I also feel happy to be in my homeland,” said Guevara, speaking in a country where criticizing the government can be deadly for reporters. “I mean, they didn’t execute me.”

U.S. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia Mclaughlin, in a statement to The Hill, said DHS is “happy” that Guevara has been deported to El Salvador, adding, “If you come to our country and break our laws, we will arrest you and you will NEVER return.”

But according to the judge who threw out charges against Guevara, he broke no laws while covering the protest.  A petition by the ACLU that sought to halt the deportation and free Guevara argued that the action was retaliatory and amounted to prior restraint on his future speech and reporting, also violating due process.

According to the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, “In numerous cases, the Supreme Court has indicated that the Constitution establishes a strong presumption against such prior restraints. The founding fathers viewed the practice of prior restraint as detrimental to democracy. British common law had been interpreted to oppose licensing and other forms of prior restraint of speech and press, which served as an example during the U.S. Constitutional Convention.”

Andre Lopez-Delgado, senior attorney for the ACLU of Georgia, concludes, “Mr. Guevara’s deportation marks a sad day... where the rule of law is disregarded for a cruel and unjust policy.”