The Journalist Who Spent More Than 100 Days in ICE Detention

At Liberty

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4.8 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This summer, Emmy Award-winning journalist Mario Guevara was covering a protest near Atlanta when local law enforcement arrested him. Then, ICE detained him. For more than 100 days, the agency refused his release, citing his reporting as dangerous. On October 3, after more than 20 years of living in the United States, he was deported to El Salvador. This week, the ACLU’s Scarlet Kim, who served on Guevara's legal team, joins Kamau to discuss his case and why it should sound alarm bells for us all. Then, the ACLU’s Jessica Herman Weitz drops in to discuss another Emmy Award winner in the headlines for free speech repression: Jimmy Kimmel. You can check out the Kimmel letter here: https://www.aclu.org/defend-free-speech-letter-kimmel And add your name to an open letter in support of free speech here: https://action.aclu.org/petition/defend-free-speech-all-condemn-governments-censorship-jimmy-kimmel At Liberty is a production of the ACLU. For the ACLU, our senior executive producer is Sam Riddell, our executive producer is Jessica Herman Weitz, and our intern is Madhvi Khianra. W. Kamau Bell and Melissa Hudson Bell, PhD are executive producers for Who Knows Best Productions. At Liberty is produced and edited by Erica Getto and Myrriah Gossett for Good Get. This episode was recorded at Skyline Studios in Oakland, CA.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, it's me, W. Camel Bell. Welcome back to the ACLU's podcast, At Liberty. It's been a minute, and I'm glad we're back. Are you glad we're back? I'm glad. I hope you're glad. And you know what? This fall, we've got a lot of work to do.
0:19.4	Storytime. So on September 17th, me, your host of At Liberty, W. Camel Bell, was at a party for the Atlantic Festival in New York City. I was at that party with some of the movers and shakers of New York City and the world, all talking and cocktailing and hanging out. and then everybody's phone started to buzz.
0:39.8	Slowly people pulled their phones out of their pockets, and we all found out that Jimmy Kimmel
0:44.2	had been suspended and taken off the air for a joke he had made.
0:50.7	As a stand-up comedian, I take it personally, and I also know that it was not the first time that an American comedian had been punished in America for the material.
1:00.0	There was Lenny Bruce in San Francisco, George Carlin, in Milwaukee, who were both arrested and charged with violating obscenity laws.
1:08.0	This is a grave reminder that you can't have stand-up comedy without the First Amendment.
1:13.8	And you also can't have a free press.
1:16.6	And what you may not have realized is that on September 17th, another Emmy Award winner was
1:21.6	facing retaliation for exercising his right to free speech.
1:26.7	On June 14th, Mario Guevara, a Salvadoran journalist living just outside of Atlanta, was arrested at a local No King's Rally.
1:34.3	He'd been reporting on the event and was clearly wearing a press vest.
1:38.3	While he was in police custody, ICE detained him.
1:41.3	And for more than 100 days, they refused Guavara's release.
1:45.4	Their reasoning, his reporting on law enforcement activity was dangerous. On October 3rd, after
1:51.2	more than 20 years of living in the United States, he was deported to El Salvador. In a letter
1:56.5	written from detention, Guvara reminded us, the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United
2:01.9	States says with liberty and justice for all. Right now, that is a fallacy. They should add,
2:08.3	except for immigrants. Now, it goes without saying that Guvara's case didn't receive nearly as much
2:14.1	attention as Kimmel's, and we want to change that. So today, we'll talk about Kimmel,
2:18.6	but first we'll talk about Guavara and why the attempts to silence them both should concern us all.
2:24.0	With that, let's turn up the mic.
	...

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