Immigration Embracelet
The bracelet you are receiving today is meant to serve as a daily reminder of the individuals who live in this country but have been inhumanly detained by our federal government. It is also intended to draw the attention of others with whom you interact when you are out in public.
Our hope is that people will ask you about the bracelet and you can use that as an opening to share the story of one person affected by these policies and to explain that this one person is just one of hundreds of thousands impacted by the current administration’s approach to immigration enforcement.
We ask that you try to wear this on a daily basis and to remember a few of the details about the person featured below. We also encourage you to periodically check on their situation by searching their name online for any updates to their detention status or their path toward citizenship.
Your person:
Mario Guevara is a Spanish-language journalist who has been held in federal immigration detention since June. Guevara, 47, fled his native El Salvador two decades ago because he had suffered violence and harassment there for his work as a journalist. He has continued to work as a journalist since arriving in the Atlanta, Georgia area. He attracted a large following while working for years for Mundo Hispanico, a Spanish-language newspaper, before starting a digital news outlet called MG News a year ago. Guevara is authorized to work and remain in the U.S. A previous immigration case against him was administratively closed more than a decade ago. He has a pending visa petition and is eligible for a green card. He was arrested while he was covering a protest June 14, and his lawyers have argued in a court filing that the government is retaliating against him for his news coverage and is holding him in violation of his constitutional rights. He is being held in an immigration detention center in Folkston, in southeast Georgia, a five-hour drive from his family in suburban Atlanta. https://apnews.com/article/journalist-immigration-detention-ice-mario-guevara-e384d60e2e28645d71b45aa491fc7df9
Defending our Communities Against ICE:
If you see ICE on the streets of your community, spread information, not fear!
Call DIRE’s Rapid Response Hotline at 1-888-347-3767 and give them the following information:
Know Your Rights:
Visit the American Civil Liberties Union website to learn about the rights of immigrants and also your rights as a bystander/protestor: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights