By KATE BRUMBACK, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Lawyers for a Spanish-language journalist who has been in immigration detention in Georgia since June said Friday they’re worried his deportation could be imminent after an appeals panel reopened an old immigration case against him and ordered him sent back to El Salvador.

Local police just outside Atlanta arrested Mario Guevara while he was covering a protest on June 14, and he was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. An immigration judge in July granted him bond, but he remained in custody while the government appealed.

All criminal charges filed against Guevara after his arrest have been dismissed. An immigration case against him was administratively closed more than a decade ago, and his lawyers have said he was authorized to live and work in the U.S. He’s being punished for doing his work as a journalist — particularly filming ICE and other law enforcement activity — in violation of his constitutional rights, his lawyers have argued.

An unfavorable ruling

The Board of Immigration Appeals, which hears appeals of immigration court rulings, on Friday dismissed the government’s appeal of the bond order, saying it was moot. The order says records show that the board had denied Guevara’s appeal of a previous deportation order. The board said the deportation order is now final and that neither an immigration judge nor the board has the authority to set a bond.

But lawyers for Guevara argue that the board’s order is based on incorrect information. In a separate case they have filed in federal court, they asked a judge on Friday to hold an emergency hearing and issue an immediate order for his release. They said in a filing that they feared the Board of Immigration Appeals decision “could have immediate consequences.”

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The appeals board based its ruling on a decision in an immigration case against Guevara from 13 years ago, said Scarlet Kim, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. The immigration judge in that case rejected Guevara’s bid to stay in the U.S. but granted him voluntary departure rather than ordering him deported, Kim said.

Guevara appealed that ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals at the time, but while that appeal was pending, the government agreed to administratively close the case, and he was granted authorization to live and work in the U.S., his lawyers have said.

When he was taken into ICE custody in June, the government sought to reopen that old case. His immigration attorney asked that the matter be sent back to an immigration judge because Guevara now has a pathway to legal residency and a petition pending through his U.S. citizen adult son, Kim said. The Board of Immigration Appeals also rejected that request.

Kim said the Board of Immigration Appeal’s ruling Friday incorrectly said that an immigration judge had ordered him deported and based its ruling on that incorrect information.

“We don’t know what the status of his actual deportation is, but his immigration counsel is concerned that he’s going to be deported ASAP based on their understanding of what happens when the government thinks there’s a final order of removal in place,” Kim said.

Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment on the government’s plans for Guevara.

Guevara’s work as a journalist

Guevara, 48, fled El Salvador two decades ago out of fear, and amassed a big audience as a journalist in the Atlanta area. He worked for Mundo Hispanico, a Spanish-language newspaper, for years before starting a digital news outlet called MG News a year ago. He was livestreaming video on social media from a “No Kings” rally protesting President Donald Trump’s administration when local police arrested him in DeKalb County.

Guevara is known for arriving on the scene where ICE or other law enforcement agencies are active, often after getting tips from community members. He regularly livestreams what he’s seeing on social media.

Video from his arrest shows Guevara wearing a bright red shirt under a protective vest with “PRESS” printed across his chest. He could be heard telling a police officer, “I’m a member of the media, officer.” He was standing on a sidewalk with other journalists, with no sign of big crowds or confrontations around him, moments before he was taken away.

Criminal charges that have been dismissed

Police charged Guevara with unlawful assembly, obstruction of police and being a pedestrian on or along the roadway. He was granted bond in DeKalb, but ICE had put a hold on him and he was held until they came to pick him up.

DeKalb County Solicitor-General Donna Coleman-Stribling on June 25 dismissed the charges, saying that video showed that Guevara was “generally in compliance and does not demonstrate the intent to disregard law enforcement directives.”

The sheriff’s office in neighboring Gwinnett County announced on June 20, that once Guevara was already in ICE custody, it had secured warrants against him on charges of distracted driving, failure to obey a traffic control device and reckless driving. Gwinnett County Solicitor-General Lisamarie Bristol announced July 10 that she would not pursue those charges.

By MARTHA BELLISLE, Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) — Four special operations soldiers aboard a U.S. Army MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that crashed near Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state are “believed to be dead,” the U.S. Army Special Operations Command said Friday.

The helicopter was on a routine training mission west of the base when it crashed at about 9 p.m. Wednesday, Army officials said. The soldiers were part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, Airborne, officials said.

Army officials said recovery efforts are underway, and the cause of the crash remains under investigation. They said they would release the soldiers’ names “when appropriate,” out of respect for the families.

“Our hearts are with the families, friends, and teammates of these Night Stalkers,” said Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, USASOC Commander. “They were elite warriors who embodied the highest values of the Army and the Army Special Operations, and their sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

FILE – The main flag pole in front of the U.S. Army I Corps headquarters on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Tacoma, Wash., hangs at half-staff, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

The regiment’s mission is to organize, equip and employ Army special operations aviation forces around the world, according to the Army’s website.

“Known as Night Stalkers, these soldiers are recognized for their proficiency in nighttime operations,” the website said. “They are highly trained and ready to accomplish the very toughest missions in all environments, anywhere in the world, day or night, with unparalleled precision.”

The crash sparked a small wildfire that had grown to 1.25 acres (0.5 hectares) by Friday morning, the Washington Department of Natural Resources said. The agency said there was “pretty minimal fire activity” so they had one engine on the scene.

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The base is about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Tacoma under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Joint Base Headquarters.

The Thurston County Sheriff’s Office, based in Olympia, posted online late Wednesday that deputies were dispatched to reports of a possible helicopter crash in the Summit Lake area, west of Olympia.

“We have been advised that the military lost contact with a helicopter in the area,” the department said. It said it was working with the base and that no further details were available.

Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders said on Facebook that deputies located the crash site “but have been unable to continue rescue efforts as the scene is on fire.”

The most recent aviation mishap at the joint base occurred in March 2024. Two soldiers were hospitalized when their Apache helicopter crashed at the base during a routine training exercise.

By BARBARA ORTUTAY and SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is preparing to sign a proclamation that will require a $100,000 application fee for H-1B visa applications among other changes to the program for highly skilled foreign workers that has come under scrutiny by the administration, according to a White House official.

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The signing could come as early as Friday, the official said. The official was granted anonymity to speak in advance of the proclamation signing. The proposed proclamation was first reported by Bloomberg News.

H-1B visas are meant to bring the best and brightest foreigners for high-skilled jobs that tech companies find difficult to fill with qualified U.S. citizens and permanent residents. The program instead has turned into a pipeline for overseas workers who are often willing to work for as little as $60,000 annually. That is far less than $100,000-plus salaries typically paid to U.S. technology workers.

First lady Melania Trump, the former Melania Knauss, was granted an H1-B work visa in October 1996 to work as a model. She was born in Slovenia.

The H1-B program was created in 1990 for people with a bachelor’s degree or higher in fields where jobs are deemed hard to fill, especially science, technology, engineering and math. Critics say they allow companies to pay lower wages with fewer labor protections.

Historically, these visas — 85,000 per year — have been doled out through a lottery system. This year, Amazon was by far the top recipient of H-1B visas with more than 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Geographically, California has the highest number of H-1B workers, according to UCIS.

Critics say H-1B spots often go to entry-level jobs, rather than senior positions with unique skill requirements. And while the program isn’t supposed to undercut U.S. wages or displace U.S. workers, critics say companies can pay less by classifying jobs at the lowest skill levels, even if the specific workers hired have more experience.

As a result, many U.S. companies find it cheaper simply to contract out help desks, programming and other basic tasks to consulting companies such as Wipro, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Tata in India and IBM and Cognizant in the U.S. These consulting companies hire foreign workers, often from India, and contract them out to U.S. employers looking to save money.

Doug Rand, who served as the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Biden administration, said this amounts to a “split personality disorder” for the program, with only about half of the visas each year going to traditional companies that offer long-term employment and can put immigrants on a track to citizenship. The other half go to staffing or consulting firms — and while many are established and well-known companies, others are just one-person operations that wouldn’t exist without the H1-B program.

“They’re basically entering the lottery so they can hire people that they then rent out to other larger companies doing actual work,” Rand said. “And so there’s a lot of misbehavior and chicanery in this part of the system.”

In 2024, lottery bids for the visas plunged nearly 40%, which authorities said was due to success against people who were “gaming the system” by submitting multiple, sometimes dubious, applications to unfairly increase chances of being selected.

Major technology companies that use H-1B visas sought changes after massive increases in bids left their employees and prospective hires with slimmer chances of winning the random lottery. Facing what it acknowledged was likely fraud and abuse, USCIS this year said each employee had only one shot at the lottery, whether the person had one job offer or 50.

Critics welcomed the change but said more needs to be done. The AFL-CIO wrote last year that while changes to the lottery “included some steps in the right direction,” it fell short of needed reforms. The labor group wants visas awarded to companies that pay the highest wages instead of by random lottery, a change that Trump sought during his first term in the White House.

Ortutay reported from Oakland, Calif. Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., contributed to this report.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press

A Trump appointee has been picked to be the acting head of the U.S. Census Bureau, replacing a career economist in the interim job, at a time when the Republican president is calling for a new census that excludes people in the U.S. illegally.

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George Cook, who is chief of staff for the economic affairs undersecretary at the Department of Commerce, which oversees the Census Bureau, has been performing the duties of bureau director as of this week, according to an email sent Friday to agency employees and shared with The Associated Press.

He is also performing the duties of the undersecretary for economic affairs, according to the email.

“George is eager to see the Census Bureau represent the very best of American operational and technological prowess, remain a pillar of our constitutional system by defending the integrity and accuracy of data, and continue to be a hub for America’s most accomplished economic, demographic, and statistical experts to research, train, grow, and serve,” the email said.

Rob Santos, who was appointed the bureau’s director by former Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022, resigned in January following the swearing-in of Donald Trump to a second term. Since Santos’ departure, the nation’s largest statistical agency has been led on an interim basis by Ron Jarmin, the bureau’s deputy director and chief operating officer.

Trump last month instructed the Commerce Department to have the Census Bureau start work on a new census that would exclude immigrants who are in the United States illegally from the head count that determines political power and federal spending.

Experts have said it would be very difficult to conduct a mid-decade census because any changes would require alterations to the Census Act and approval from Congress, which has oversight responsibilities, and there likely would be a fierce fight.

The federal law governing the census permits a mid-decade head count for things like distributing federal funding, but it can’t be used for apportionment or redistricting and must be done in a year ending in 5. Additionally, the 14th Amendment says that “the whole number of persons in each state” are to be counted for the numbers used for apportionment, and the Census Bureau has interpreted that to mean anybody residing in the United States regardless of legal status.

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social