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el salvador
'Unconstitutional, Un-American, and Wrong': Journalist Mario Guevara to Be Deported to El Salvador Friday
"Mario's treatment should terrify any person in this country that cares about a free press," said an ACLU attorney.
Oct 02, 2025
Journalist Mario Guevara's family and lawyers said Thursday that the award-winning Spanish-language journalist is set to be deported from the United States to his native El Salvador on Friday morning.
The announcement comes after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday declined to block a final order of removal from the Board of Immigration Appeals. The ACLU said in a statement that Guevara's wife and three children were not allowed to say goodbye to the journalist, who was transferred to a Louisiana facility ahead of his deportation after being held in a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) center in Georgia for over 100 days.
"Words cannot begin to describe the loss and devastation my family feels. I am in utter shock and disbelief the government has punished my father for simply doing his life’s work of journalism," said his son Oscar Guevara, who also shared an update in Spanish on his father's Facebook account.
"My father should have never had to face over 100 days in detention," Oscar Guevara continued. "He is the center of our family. He is the reason our home feels like home. To me, he's my rock, and I don't know what life without him here will look like now that he will be deported."
"When I was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2021, it was my dad who centered me, who drove me to my medical appointments, and who lifted me up," he added. "Now, I will have to manage my healthcare on my own, and live thousands of miles away separated from him. My family has been torn apart for no good reason, and I can only hope that we can one day be reunited."
Guevara has covered immigration in the Atlanta area for two decades. He was arrested in June while reporting on a "No Kings" protest in Georgia. The local charges against him were dropped, but he has remained in ICE custody in Folkston, despite having work authorization and a path to a green card through his son.
The reporter's battle to remain in the United States has played out as ICE works to deliver on President Donald Trump's promise of mass deportations and his adminstration cracks down on criticism from journalists, comedians, and more. Press freedom and immigrant rights advocates have sounded the alarm about his case.
"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, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU, one of the groups representing Guevara in federal court.
"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," added Kim. "Mario's treatment should terrify any person in this country that cares about a free press."
Freedom of the Press Foundation is among the groups that have been demanding his release. The organization's director of advocacy, Seth Stern, said Thursday that "Mario Guevara was ripped from his family and community because the Trump administration punishes journalists to protect its own power."
"The only thing that journalists like Guevara threaten is the government's chokehold on information it doesn't want the public to know. That's why he's being deported and why federal agents are assaulting and arresting journalists around the country," Stern continued. "The full impact on our freedom of speech may never be known. But what is certain is that Guevara's deportation sends a chilling message to other journalists: Tell the truth, and the state will come for you."
"This is unconstitutional, un-American, and wrong," he added. "It's an assault on the First Amendment, and it won't stop until we all fight back by speaking out."
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Judge Rejects Kilmar Abrego Garcia's Bid to Reopen Asylum Claim
The judge ruled Abrego Garcia had presented "insufficient evidence" to show that the Trump administration planned his "imminent removal to Uganda."
Oct 02, 2025
Kilmar Ábrego García, the man whom the Trump administration wrongly deported to El Salvador earlier this year, has been denied a bid to reopen his asylum case.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Immigration Judge Philip P. Taylor rejected Ábrego García's asylum request, as he found "insufficient evidence" to show that the Trump administration planned his "imminent removal to Uganda," even though the US Department of Homeland Security wrote in a social media post in late August that he would be processed for removal to that nation.
In explaining his ruling, Taylor noted that the government had not yet filed any paperwork to send Ábrego García to Uganda, and a government attorney said that deporting him to Uganda was merely a possibility not a foregone conclusion.
Ábrego García now has 30 days to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
The Trump administration this past June complied with a Supreme Court order to facilitate Ábrego García's return to United States after it acknowledged months earlier that he had been improperly deported to El Salvador, where a US immigration judge had ruled years earlier he faced direct danger from gang threats against him and his family.
While imprisoned in El Salvador’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), Ábrego García's attorneys allege he was subjected to physical and psychological abuse "including but not limited to severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture."
Upon his return, the US Department of Justice promptly hit him with human smuggling charges to which he has pleaded not guilty.
President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have also accused Ábrego García of being a member of the gang MS-13, although they have produced no evidence to back up that assertion.
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On Day of His Release, Trump Administration Threatens to Deport Ábrego García to Uganda
"Just spiteful evil for the sake of it," fumed one observer.
Aug 23, 2025
On the same day he was released from federal custody, the Trump administration on Friday informed Kilmar Ábrego García—a Maryland man wrongfully deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison rife with abuse—that it may deport him to the East African nation of Uganda.
Ábrego García, a Salvadoran national who entered the US without authorization when he was a teenager, was released Friday from a jail near Nashville, Tennessee, where he had been held since June following his errant deportation to El Salvador and imprisonment in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) super-maximum security prison.
According to a notice sent by a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official to Ábrego García's attorneys on Friday, "DHS may remove your client... to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now."
US District Judge Paula Xinis last month issued a ruling barring the Trump administration from immediately arresting Ábrego García upon his release and requiring the government to provide three business days' notice if US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intended to initiate deportation proceedings against him.
ICE directed Ábrego García to report to the agency's Baltimore field office on Monday morning.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that the Trump administration decide to pursue deportation of Ábrego García to Uganda after he declined an offer to be sent to Costa Rica if he pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges related to his alleged transportation of undocumented immigrants in Tennessee in 2022.
Uganda is one of four African nations—the others are Eswatini, Rwanda, and South Sudan—that have agreed to take third-country nationals deported from the US.
Noting that Ábrego García "has no connections to Uganda," Washington Monthly contributor David Atkins accused the Trump administration of "just spiteful evil for the sake of it."
Ábrego García was deported to CECOT in March after the Trump administration claimed without credible evidence that he was a gang member. He was one of more than 200 people deported to CECOT without due process. The father of three said he was subjected to beatings and "psychological torture" at the prison.
Although acknowledging wrongfully deporting Ábrego García, the Trump administration argued in court that it lacked jurisdiction to order his return to the United States. However, Xinis—who called Ábrego García's deportation "wholly lawless"—on April 4 ordered the administration to facilitate his stateside return.
As the administration balked, the US Supreme Court intervened, affirming Xinis' order in an April 10 ruling. Ábrego García was finally returned to the US in June, only to be arrested for alleged human smuggling. He pleaded not guilty and asked the court to dismiss the charges against him, contending they are retaliation for challenging his deportation to El Salvador.
In a court filing, Ábrego García's lawyers said their client is being subjected to "vindictive and selective prosecution" by the Trump administration.
"There can be only one interpretation of these events: the [Department of Justice], DHS, and ICE are using their collective powers to force Mr. Ábrego to choose between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat," the attorneys wrote.
"It is difficult to imagine a path the government could have taken that would have better emphasized its vindictiveness," they added. "This case should be dismissed."
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