A federal judge ruled on July 1 that Guevara can be released from ICE custody on bond. ICE, CPJ reported, “has refused to comply with the judge’s release order and denied Guevara’s bail, listing him as ‘Not Releasable’ on July 7.” The organization is “outraged at this attack on #PressFreedom, and calls for Guevara’s immediate release.”

The nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists on July 2, 2025, condemned a decision by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities not to comply with a federal immigration judge’s order that granted bail to Atlanta-based Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara, who was originally arrested on First Amendment-related charges that were dropped on June 25.

“We are outraged that immigration authorities refused to free journalist Mario Guevara on bond after a judge ordered that he could be released yesterday,” said Katherine Jacobsen, coordinator of CPJ’s U.S., Canada and Caribbean program. “By continuing to hold Guevara, officials are effectively silencing a reporter who was in the United States legally and had covered immigration stories in his Atlanta metro community for nearly 20 years. He must be released.”

Guevara’s immigration attorney, Giovanni Diaz, told CPJ that ICE has not allowed Guevara’s family to post bond, nor has the family been given a clear explanation why. The Spanish-language reporter is currently the only journalist in custody in the U.S. whose arrest was directly related to their work.

A federal immigration judge ruled on July 1 that Guevara could be released on $7,500 bond, with the caveat that his release could be reconsidered if he were to face additional charges or be convicted.

At the bail hearing, the federal government argued that livestreaming — a reporting method favored by Guevara — presented a danger to the public by compromising the integrity and safety of law enforcement activities. That position “should alarm all journalists working in the United States,” Jacobsen said.

According to CPJ, Guevara faces three misdemeanor charges related to traffic violations. The charges were filed after an ICE detainer was issued and nearly one month after the violations allegedly occurred.

Guevara was arrested on June 14 while covering a No Kings protest in the Atlanta metro area, during which he wore a press pass and clearly identified himself as a journalist to ICE agents. Guevara was subsequently denied bond and transferred to ICE custody. The First Amendment-related charges against him were dropped by the Dekalb County solicitor-general on June 25, and on July 1, a federal immigration judge ordered that he be released on bond. At the time of publication, Guevara was in custody at the Folkston ICE Processing Center in southeastern Georgia.

Image: CPJ screenshot (via YouTube/Atlanta First News)

According to the article, Mississippi’s Institutions of Higher Learning board had hired Thompson in 2023 after his predecessor, Thomas Hudson. The board had placed Hudson on administrative leave after three years on the job, but to date has not shared the personnel issue that motivated its decision.

Hudson’s predecessor, William Bynum, appointed in 2017, was ousted following his arrest in 2020 on a charge of “procuring the services of prostitute, false statement of identity and possession of marijuana.”

IHL conducted a national search for Hudson’s replacement and interviewed 79 applicants, eventually choosing Thompson, an employee within its system since 2009 who had reportedly never led a university.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Tougaloo alumnus and chair of the House’s Jan. 6 Committee, bestowed Crockett with an honorary degree from the HBCU.

Crockett told the graduating students, “To think about the fact that people have to be fearful of having a sitting member of Congress to come and address their graduates tells us that we still got a lot of work to do. The reality is that this harkens back to a man named Martin. They decided that he wanted to go out and educate and invigorate during the Civil Rights Movement, and it was here at Tougaloo that he could come and speak. In fact, it was the only institution in Mississippi that he could come and speak.”

Now, in large swaths of the state, public and private schools are largely segregated by race. A new report by ProPublica highlights this dynamic and considers how the push for public support for private schools will play into it.

Opponents of efforts to use school vouchers and charter schools, and to enable parents to use public funds to pay private school tuition, say such moves would reduce funding for cash-strapped public schools while promoting majority-white private schools, leading to further racial segregation.

The ProPublica report focuses on one example, Amite County, near the Louisiana line in southwest Mississippi.

The report notes that the voucher movement began in the 1990s “as a concealed effort to finance urban parochial schools and expanded to a much broader push.” The result is that state legislatures are increasing funneling public money to families who could easily afford private school tuition, which threatens public school funding and puts pressure on state budgets.