By Nick Valencia
ATLANTA — Mario Guevara, the Spanish-language journalist whose arrest last weekend at a protest in Georgia drew national scrutiny, has now been transferred to an immigration detention facility in Atlanta, according to his family.
Guevara, a longtime independent journalist with a following of nearly 800,000 subscribers across platforms, had been held in DeKalb County Jail after his detainment Saturday during a “No Kings” protest against former President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, he was quietly moved into what ICE classifies as a “transitional facility” — a bureaucratic term that has his family deeply worried.
“We’re not even sure exactly where he is right now,” his daughter told Nick Valencia News. “It’s horrible.”
The family says they haven’t been able to speak with him since yesterday morning. “He was more concerned than usual, but then we didn’t hear from him for the rest of the day,” she said. “We had been able to talk to him multiple times per day — until yesterday.”
Lawyers working on Guevara’s behalf are now urgently preparing a petition for bond, hoping to secure his release before the case escalates further. If that petition is denied, Guevara could face formal deportation proceedings.
“For him to be placed into removal, a lot would have to go wrong,” said one source close to the legal team. “But in this climate, the unimaginable is no longer unthinkable.”
Guevara’s situation has resonated widely, not just because of his arrest — while wearing a press vest and livestreaming police conduct — but because of who he is. A fixture in immigrant communities across the South, Guevara has reported on ICE raids and border enforcement for more than a decade. He has also drawn controversy for what some saw as an overly sympathetic view of law enforcement, including a viral video where he appeared to side with officers during a traffic stop involving a suspected undocumented immigrant.
Now, the same journalist who once chronicled others’ detentions has become a cautionary tale himself.
“He has two pending petitions for his citizenship,” his daughter told us. “But under this current climate, it feels like anyone can be a target.”
This is a developing story. More updates to come as we learn about Guevara’s legal proceedings, facility status, and ICE’s next moves.