Journalist arrested by ICE remains in custody despite being granted bond by judge
Mario Guevara was arrested just outside Atlanta while he was covering a protest on June 14, and he was turned over to ICE several days later.
He was being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston — in southeast Georgia, near the Florida border — when an immigration judge last week granted him bond.
But when his family tried to pay the $7,500 bond last week, ICE didn't accept it and he has since been shuffled between three other jails, his lawyer Giovanni Diaz said.
'We are of the opinion that there seems to be a concerted effort between different jurisdictions to keep him detained,' Diaz said.
Guevara, 47, fled El Salvador two decades ago and drew a loyal audience as a journalist covering immigration in the Atlanta area. He worked for Mundo Hispanico, a Spanish-language newspaper, for years before starting a digital news outlet called MG News. He was livestreaming video on social media from a DeKalb County rally protesting President Donald Trump's administration when local police arrested him.
Guevara has been authorized to work and remain in the country, Diaz said. A previous immigration case against him was administratively closed more than a decade ago, and he has a pending green card application sponsored by his adult U.S. citizen son, the lawyer said.
After Immigration Judge James Ward granted him bond, Guevara's family tried several times to pay it online but it wouldn't go through, Diaz said. They then went to pay it in person and ICE refused to accept it, he said.
'What we didn't know was what was going on in the background,' Diaz said, explaining that they have since learned that ICE was challenging his release to the Board of Immigration Appeals and asked to put the bond order on hold while that's pending.
Another of Guevara's attorneys was then told that he was being transferred to Gwinnett County, in suburban Atlanta, because there were open warrants for his arrest on traffic charges there. He was taken to the Gwinnett jail last Thursday and was released the same day on bond in that case.
Because his immigration bond had not been paid, he was taken back into ICE custody at that point, Diaz said. He was taken to Floyd County, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) northwest of Atlanta, where the county sheriff's office has an agreement to detain people for ICE.
Floyd County Jail records showed that he was in custody there until Monday. Diaz said Guevara was then moved to a federal Bureau of Prisons facility in Atlanta, where he remained on Tuesday.
The immigration judge agreed with Guevara's lawyers that the journalist is not a danger to the community, but ICE is arguing he's such a threat that he shouldn't be released, Diaz said.
'We think it's overkill,' the lawyer said. And in what Diaz characterized as a concerning development, Guevara was told while in custody in Gwinnett County that his phone was confiscated under a search warrant.
The video from his arrest shows Guevara wearing a bright red shirt under a protective vest with 'PRESS' printed across his chest. He could be heard telling a police officer, 'I'm a member of the media, officer.' He was standing on a sidewalk with other journalists, with no sign of big crowds or confrontations around him, moments before he was taken away.
DeKalb police charged Guevara with unlawful assembly, obstruction of police and being a pedestrian on or along the roadway. His lawyers worked to get him released and he was granted bond in DeKalb, but ICE had put a hold on him and he was held until they came to pick him up.
DeKalb County Solicitor-General Donna Coleman-Stribling on June 25 dismissed those charges, saying that while probable cause existed to support the arrest, there wasn't enough evidence to support a prosecution.
'At the time of his arrest, the video evidence shows Mr. Guevara generally in compliance and does not demonstrate the intent to disregard law enforcement directives,' her office said in a news release.
Guevara's arrest immediately drew widespread attention and was criticized by press freedom groups, which said he was simply doing his job.
On June 20, the Gwinnett sheriff's office said it had secured warrants for Guevara's arrest on charges of distracted driving, failure to obey a traffic control device and reckless driving, saying that, he had 'compromised operational integrity and jeopardized the safety' of victims of a law enforcement case, investigators an Gwinnett residents.
An initial incident report says the charges stem from a May 20 incident, which it says was reported June 17 — three days after his arrest at the protest. The narrative section of the report gives no details. Diaz said people charged with traffic violations are usually charged on the spot, and it is very unusual for an officer to swear out a warrant for arrest on such a violation a month later.
"None of this is normal," Diaz said.
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The Guardian
8 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Cemetery of the living dead': Venezuelans recall 125 days in notorious El Salvador prison
Arturo Suárez struggles to pinpoint the worst moment of his incarceration inside a prison the warden boasted was 'a cemetery of the living dead'. Was it the day inmates became so exasperated at being beaten by guards that they threatened to hang themselves with their sheets? 'The only weapon we had was our own lives,' recalled the Venezuelan former detainee. Was it when prisoners staged a 'blood strike', cutting their arms with broken pipes and smearing their bedclothes with crimson messages of despair? 'SOS!' they wrote. Or was rock bottom for Suárez when he turned 34 while stranded in a Central American penitentiary prison officers had claimed he would only leave in a body bag? Suárez, a reggaeton musician known by the stage name SuarezVzla, was one of 252 Venezuelans who found themselves trapped inside El Salvador's notorious 'Cecot' terrorism confinement centre after becoming embroiled in Donald Trump's anti-immigrant crusade. After 125 days behind bars, Suárez and the other detainees were freed on 18 July after a prisoner swap deal between Washington and Caracas. Since flying home to Venezuela, they have started to open up about their torment, offering a rare and disturbing glimpse of the human toll of President Nayib Bukele's authoritarian crackdown in El Salvador and Trump's campaign against immigration. Suárez said conditions inside the maximum security prison were so dire he and other inmates considered killing themselves. 'My daughter's really little and she needs me. But we'd made up our minds. We decided to put an end to this nightmare,' he said, although the prisoners stepped back from the brink. Another detainee, Neiyerver Rengel, 27, described his panic after guards claimed he would probably spend 90 years there. 'I felt shattered, destroyed,' said the Venezuelan barber, who was deported to Cecot after being captured in Irving, Texas. Trump officials called the Venezuelans – many of whom had no criminal background – 'heinous monsters' and 'terrorists' but largely failed to produce proof, with many seemingly targeted simply for being Venezuelan and having tattoos. Norman Eisen, the executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, which is helping Rengel sue the US government for $1.3m, called the 'abduction' of scores of Venezuelans a stain on his country's reputation. 'It is shocking and shameful and every patriotic American should be disgusted by it,' said Eisen, who expected other freed prisoners to take legal action. Suárez's journey to one of the world's harshest prisons began in Chile's capital, Santiago, where the singer had moved after fleeing Venezuela's economic collapse in 2016. One day early last year, before deciding to migrate to the US, Suárez watched a viral YouTube video about the 'mega-prison' by the Mexican influencer Luisito Comunica. Bukele officials had invited Comunica to film inside Cecot as part of propaganda efforts to promote an anti-gang offensive that has seen 2% of the country's adult population jailed since 2022. Suárez, then a fan of El Salvador's social media-savvy president, was gripped. 'Wouldn't it be great if we could afford a package tour to go and visit Cecot?' he recalled joking to his wife. Little did the couple know that Suárez would soon be languishing in Cecot's cage-like cells, sleeping on a metal bunk bed. After entering the US in September 2024, Suárez worked odd jobs in North Carolina. In February, three weeks after Trump's inauguration, he was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents and, in mid-March, put on a deportation flight, the destination of which was not revealed. When the plane landed, its passengers – who were instructed to keep its blinds closed – had no idea where they were. The penny dropped when one detainee disobeyed the order and spotted El Salvador's flag outside. 'That's when we understood … where we were heading – to Cecot,' he said. Suárez described the hours that followed as a blur of verbal abuse and beatings, as disoriented prisoners were frogmarched on to buses that took them to Cecot's cell block eight. Suárez said the men were forced to shave their heads and told by the warden: 'Welcome to hell! Welcome to the cemetery of the living dead! You'll leave here dead!' As he was dragged off the bus, Suárez, who is shortsighted, said he asked a guard for help because his spectacles were falling off: 'He told me to shut up, punched me [in the face] and broke my glasses.' 'What am I doing in Cecot?' Suárez recalled thinking. 'I'm not a terrorist. I've never killed anyone. I make music.' Rengel had almost identical memories of his arrival: 'The police officers started saying we were going to die in El Salvador – that it was likely we'd spend 90 years there.' Noah Bullock, the head of the El Salvador-focused human rights group Cristosal, said activists had heard very similar accounts from prisoners in other Salvadoran jails, suggesting such terror tactics were not merely the behaviour of 'bad apple prison guards'. 'There's clearly a culture coming from the leadership of the prison system to inculcate the guards into operating this way, [into] using dehumanising and physical abuse in a systematic way.' Suárez said the Venezuelans spent the next 16 weeks being woken at 4am, moved between cells holding between 10 and 19 people, and enduring a relentless campaign of physical and psychological abuse. 'There's no life in there,' he said. 'The only good thing they did for us was give us a Bible. We sought solace in God and that's why nobody took their own life.' The musician tried to lift spirits by composing upbeat songs, such as Cell 31, which describes a message from God. 'Be patient, my son. Your blessing will soon arrive,' its lyrics say. The song became a prison anthem and Suárez said inmates sang it, one day in March, when the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, visited Cecot to pose by its packed cells. 'We aren't terrorists! We aren't criminals! Help!' the Venezuelans bellowed. But their pleas were ignored and the mood grew increasingly desperate, as the inmates were deprived of contact with relatives, lawyers and even the sun. 'There came a point where we had no motivation, no strength left,' Rengel said. Only in mid-June was there a glimmer of hope when prisoners were given shampoo, razors and soap and measured for clothes. 'They obviously wanted to hide what had happened from the world,' said Suárez, who sensed release might be close. One month later the men were free. Suárez said he was determined to speak out now he was safely back in his home town of Caracas. 'The truth must be … heard all over the world. Otherwise what they did to us will be ignored,' said the musician, who admitted he had once been an admirer of Bukele's populist campaigns against political corruption and gangs. 'Now I realise it's just a complete farce because how can you negotiate with human lives? How can you use human beings as bargaining chips?' Suárez said. A spokesperson for El Salvador's government did not respond to questions about the prisoners' allegations. Last week, the homeland security department's assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, dismissed prisoners' claims of abuses as 'false sob stories'. Suárez hoped never to set foot in El Salvador or the US again but said he forgave his captors. 'And I hope they can forgive themselves,' he added. 'And realise that while they might escape the justice of man they will never be able to escape divine justice.' In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
The Guardian
15 hours ago
- The Guardian
John Oliver on police gang databases: ‘Get rid of them'
After an extended summer holiday, John Oliver returned to his desk at Last Week Tonight to dissect US law enforcement's overreliance on faulty and unregulated gang databases. Such databases – as Oliver put it, 'basically lists the police keep of people they say are involved in gangs' – have been used to justify numerous deportations under the Trump administration, including the deportation and detention of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian immigrant from Maryland whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) illegally deported due to what they later admitted was an 'administrative error'. The deportation stemmed from a wrongful inclusion on a gang database – in 2019, officers apparently observed Ábrego at a Home Depot and filed a report that he belonged to a gang, based on the fact that he wore a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with 'rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents' and that they 'know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang culture'. According to the report, 'wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents [that] they are in good standing with the MS-13'. 'Which is already a little bit weird, because it implies that somehow, if you're not up to date on your monthly MS-13 dues, your Bulls hat privileges get revoked,' Oliver joked. The officer who filed that report also cited an anonymous tip that Ábrego was a member of MS-13; the officer was also suspended a week later for unrelated misconduct and ultimately fired. 'Nevertheless, that gang allegation meant that Ábrego García was denied bond and spent months locked up in Ice detention,' Oliver explained, an outcome that was 'ridiculous. A person's clothing shouldn't be criteria for locking them up for eight months. As we all know, the worst consequence of fashion choices should be getting roasted by teens on TikTok.' Ábrego's saga is one of many stories that bring the government's use of so-called 'gang databases' into question. Around the country, many local and state police departments keep these databases, often without disclosing them, despite investigations finding them to be 'notoriously inconsistent and opaque', 'riddled with questionable entries and errors' and 'rife with unreliable intelligence', to quote several reports cited by Oliver. When it comes to what constitutes a 'gang', there's 'a lot of variability here', said Oliver. 'Not all gang members may even be engaged in crime.' As one researcher put it: 'Not all gang members are criminals, and not all criminals are gang members.' 'Unfortunately, none of that nuance is on display in these databases,' said Oliver, and none of these lists have oversight from any other branch of government or other law enforcement. The criteria for inclusion are police observations and 'self-admissions', which basically means, according to Oliver, 'We found something on your social media that we decided constitutes you admitting that you're in a gang.' That could include posts with the word 'gang', such as a post from a teenager with the caption 'happy birthday, gang', added to a database on the grounds of self-admission. 'And if the bar is that low, anything is basically a confession,' said Oliver. 'A pic of you holding a diploma with the caption 'killed it?' Congratulations, grad, but now you're wanted for murder. 'And while so far I've been saying anyone can be added to these lists, those who end up on them are heavily people of color,' he continued. At one point, Washington DC's database had only one white person on its list. 'Do you know how few lists there are with only one white guy on them?' Oliver joked. 'It's basically this database and the cast of Hamilton. That is it.' Additions can also be motivated by spite; in 2020, a cop in Phoenix registered 17 Black Lives Matter protesters as 'ACAB gang members' in retaliation. Most states also do not require states to notify people if they put them on a gang database. 'And when it comes to immigrants, the designation of gang member can be truly life-altering,' said Oliver. 'It can be the reason that someone is denied various pathways to remain in the US, and it can make someone a higher priority for deportation and the target of a raid.' Oliver relayed the story of a Hispanic teen in Long Island named Alex who was added to a gang database by a school resource officer after he was seen wearing bright blue sneakers, which school security guards told him was associated with the gang MS-13. He had also doodled '504' on his backpack, which is the country code for Honduras, his country of origin. A few months later, Ice agents arrested him, saying they heard he was a gang member, and eventually deported him. When a police commissioner in Alex's county was asked why he felt local law enforcement needed to partner with Ice, he answered: 'If we have intelligence that they are a gang member, that's not necessarily a crime … The intel that we have may not indicate a state crime. The intel may be small on them, but nothing that is going to keep them in jail. So if we perceive someone as a public safety threat, we utilize all of our tools, which again includes immigration tools, so we'll partner with the Department of Homeland Security to target them for detention.' Oliver fumed in response: 'If someone is on your list of big bad criminals, and you can't find any big bad crime to arrest them for, that suggests the issue might be your fucking list. 'It is pretty clear that gang databases are way too easy to get on, way too hard to get off, and can turn people's lives upside down,' he added. 'So what do we do? Well, I'd argue we get rid of them. And if you think, 'Well, hold on, how will police then stop gang violence?' I'd say, with police work. They could and should do actual police work focusing on where violence is concentrated, instead of fixating on labels. 'I'm not saying that violence associated with gangs isn't real or isn't a problem,' he concluded. 'I'm just saying the answer needs to go beyond policing and way beyond these databases.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Democrat urges hearing into ‘human rights abuses' at El Salvador megaprison
Congresswoman Delia Ramirez is 'urgently' requesting a congressional hearing regarding the use of federal funds to pay El Salvador to detain immigrants inside a secretive terrorism prison, according to a letter she sent to the US House's homeland security committee. Ramirez, an Illinois representative and Democrat who sits on the committee, is requesting a hearing to address 'human rights abuses' at the facility, where the US government sent nearly 300 immigrants after Donald Trump's second presidency began in January. The Guardian viewed Friday's request letter, sent by Ramirez to the homeland security committee chair, Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican. Details continue to emerge regarding the treatment of Venezuelans by Salvadorian prison officials. On 18 July, the US, El Salvador and Venezuela engaged in a prisoner swap that released 252 Venezuelan men from the notorious Central American megaprison. According to press reports, Venezuelan immigrants who were sent by the US to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, known as Cecot for its Spanish acronym, have said they were subjected to horrific abuse, including beatings, torture, denial of food and, in one case, sexual assault. Lawyers for some of the men said they endured 'state-sanctioned torture', the Guardian reported. 'I am concerned that, in paying the Salvadoran government to detain immigrants at Cecot, the administration funded human rights violations with taxpayer dollars,' Ramirez's letter says. 'I urgently request that we hold a hearing on how US funds were used to enable these flagrant human rights abuses at Cecot.' Garbarino did not immediately respond to a request from the Guardian for comment about Ramirez's letter. The second Trump administration has designated a Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, a foreign terrorist organization. In March, the Trump administration invoked the Alien Enemies Act and claimed that the Venezuelan government had sent members of Tren de Aragua to 'invade' the US. Intelligence agencies reportedly contradicted the administration's claims linking the gang to the Venezuelan government. But in mid-March, immigration officers quietly filled planes with Venezuelan and Salvadorian immigrants who were detained by the US and quickly sent them to El Salvador to be detained in the Cecot prison. A federal judge ordered the planes to return after they took off. Despite the court order, the flights arrived in El Salvador, setting the stage for a unresolved court battle between the Trump administration and the federal judiciary. See more of the Guardian's immigration crackdown charts and data here. The Trump administration sent more people to El Salvador's Cecot prison later in March. After the expulsions and deportations, news reports revealed that the US government relied on flimsy evidence to accuse the deported immigrants of gang membership. One case that gained significant media attention was that of Andry Hernández Romero, a 32-year-old gay make-up artist whose crown tattoos near the words 'Mom' and 'Dad' in Spanish were cited as evidence that he was a gang member. His attorney has said that one of the tattoos honored his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid, whose logo includes a crown. The Venezuelan men were detained in Cecot for months and released on 28 July in a prisoner swap. The Venezuelan men were sent back to Venezuela, while a number of US nationals detained in the country were returned to the US – among them a former US marine who had been convicted of a triple-murder. The Salvadoran men sent to Cecot by the US government were not released as part of the swap. After his release, Hernández Romero told journalists his time in Cecot was 'an encounter with torture and death', Reuters reported. 'Many of our fellows have wounds from the nightsticks; they have fractured ribs, fractured fingers and toes, marks from the handcuffs, others have marks on their chests, on their face ... from the projectiles.' In another interview with Venezuelan media, Hernández Romero said he was sexually abused by guards. The Venezuelan government has said it will investigate El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele, a close Trump ally, over the alleged abuses. Bukele's Cecot prison has been a defining centerpiece of his administration in recent years. In 2022, Bukele declared a state of exception, leading to a massive crackdown on gangs in the country and the construction of a network of secretive prisons, including Cecot. Bukele's government has invited US representatives, social media influencers and international media to tour the facility. Details of the deal between the US government and El Salvador to detain the nearly 300 immigrants are still mired in secrecy. The US frequently invoked the 'state secrets' privilege during court proceedings to avoid any disclosures regarding its deal with Bukele. In recent months, more questions have arisen regarding the deal between the Trump administration and Bukele. During the Alien Enemies Act expulsions, the Trump administration expelled a top MS-13 leader to El Salvador and is currently trying to return a second one, leading to accusations that the US is trying to do a favor for Bukele. Bukele reportedly requested the return of key MS-13 leaders from US custody, critics say, to allegedly prevent them from revealing further information about a controversial 2019 pact between his government and the gang.
