ATLANTA (AP) — A Spanish-language journalist who had been in immigration detention in Georgia since June was deported Friday to El Salvador.
Mario Guevara, 48, was covering a protest just outside Atlanta on June 14 when local police arrested him and then turned him over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement several days later. His lawyers had been fighting parallel battles in the immigration court and federal court systems trying to get him released.
In a live video posted on Facebook Friday afternoon, Guevara is seen, escorted by El Salvador government officials, exiting a vehicle and hugging a woman who pointed a camera phone at him. “Hello, Mom,” he said into the screen.
He looked toward the sky and said, “My country, my country, my country. Thank God. This isn’t how I wanted to come to my country, but thank God.”
He posted a photo Facebook of himself in a restaurant with a plate of pupusas, El Salvador’s signature dish of flat corn cakes stuffed with cheese and other fillings. In another post, declared himself “ready to continue working twice as hard from my country.”
