Tonight in Your Rights: Deported for journalism
Emmy Award-winning journalist Mario Guevara is sent to El Salvador, and a judge calls out "prosecutorial machinations" in Washington, D.C.
From bullying media companies to deporting a journalist, it’s clear:
Trump wants to silence a free press. Let’s keep making noise.
The Trump administration deported an Emmy Award-winning journalist to El Salvador, explicitly arguing in court that his live-streaming of “No Kings” protests earlier this year made him a danger to the community.
Mario Guevara’s attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union say that the U.S. government did not give his wife and three children a chance to say goodbye before sending him to Louisiana, and then having him board a flight to El Salvador, the country from which he fled persecution in 2004.
On June 14, Guevara was arrested at a “No Kings” protest, and he remained in immigration detention for months, even though his criminal charges crumbled almost immediately.
His son Oscar Guevara released the following statement:
“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. My father should have never had to face over 100 days in detention. 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. Now, I will have to manage my health care 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.”
Alarming press freedom groups internationally, the Trump administration argued against Guevara’s release by claiming that he posed a danger to the community because he live-streamed immigration agents.
Seth Stern, the director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said Trump’s government sent a clear message through Guevara’s deportation.
“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.
“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. It’s an assault on the First Amendment, and it won’t stop until we all fight back by speaking out.”
Guevara’s attorneys spoke about their client’s case multiple times on All Rise News in interviews that you can access here and here.
“Prosecutorial machinations”
As All Rise News previously reported, ex-Fox personality Jeanine Pirro has had an extraordinary losing streak with grand juries in her new position as U.S. Attorney for the District of D.C.
That was last month, when prosecutors had been forced to abandon a handful of cases.
In the last eight weeks, federal prosecutors in Pirro’s district had to dismiss 20 of the 90 complaints filed, according to a recent tally by U.S. District Judge Zia Faruqui.
U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan called the situation “unprecedented” in a ruling slamming these “prosecutorial machinations.”
“In some cases, prosecutors have elected to pursue charges even after federal grand juries have refused to return an indictment,” Sooknanan wrote. “In others, the Government has been charging cases notwithstanding apparent constitutional violations. […] Most troubling, prosecutors have rushed to charge cases before properly investigating them, resulting in individuals being detained for days only to have the Government voluntarily dismiss the charges against them at early hearings.”
Sooknanan made these observations in the case of Omari Juan Beidleman, who demanded a trial to fight accusations of “Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeding Certain Officers or Employees.”
Apparently having “second thoughts,” prosecutors moved to avoid a federal trial by moving the case to D.C. Superior Court, according to the ruling. But prosecutors sought to dismiss Beidleman’s case “without prejudice,” allowing them to pursue it again later.
Sooknanan denied Pirro’s prosecutorial gambit.
“While the Government may attempt to prosecute Mr. Beidleman in Superior Court, it cannot do so while keeping its foot in the federal courthouse door,” she wrote. “Dismissing the [case] without prejudice would subject Mr. Beidleman to prosecutorial harassment. And the Government offers no compelling reasons—indeed, hardly any reasons at all—for why it should be allowed to retain the option to stop and restart Mr. Beidleman’s federal prosecution.”
Read the remarkable opinion in full here.
Abrego wins first vindictive prosecution battle
As All Rise News reported earlier today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia won the right to an evidentiary hearing to determine whether Trump’s Justice Department is vindictively prosecuting him.
Vindictive prosecution motions are extremely difficult to win, and Abrego’s legal victory could become a shot across the bow in the cases against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) and ex-FBI director James Comey.
Read more about Abrego’s legal victory here.
After your comments on the Abrego case with Katie Phang earlier this evening, to which I refer everyone here, this is a fitting addendum. Thank you for your passion!
Sad news about Mario Guevara deportation. His son's letter is heart breaking. The cruelty of this administration is never ending.