A Mexican journalist seeking asylum in the United States after a series of stories about alleged Mexican military abuses of civilians has been released from an immigration jail after 7 months' detention.
Emilio Gutierrez Soto had been jailed since June, when he and his 15-year-old son crossed the U.S. border in Antelope Wells, N.M.., about 200 miles west of El Paso, and asked U.S. authorities for protection.
Carlos Spector, Gutierrez's El Paso lawyer, said the 46-year-old reporter for the El Diario newspaper in Ascencion, Mexico, was released Thursday with little warning and no explanation from immigration authorities."All of the sudden in the morning they called him and he called me frantically thinking he may be transferred to another center," Spector said. "It was just because."
Leticia Zamarripa, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman in El Paso, declined comment. "It's ICE policy not to comment on individual cases," she said.Gutierrez claims he was receiving daily death threats for nearly two years because he reported that Mexican soldiers were abusing civilians while they searched homes for drug cartel members. He fled after a group of heavily armed men identifying themselves as soldiers ransacked his home.
He told reporters Friday he can never go back to Mexico and will find another country if U.S. authorities eventually deny his asylum request.I'm not going to return to Mexico," Gutierrez said.His son, Oscar, was released from a juvenile detention center in August and has been living with relatives in El Paso.
Fighting back tears, Gutierrez said immediately after his release he was reunited with his son and "just hugged and kissed him.""My family is my son," Gutierrez said.His asylum application is pending, though a hearing has not been scheduled.
More than 150 people from Mexico, including police officers, businessmen and at least one prosecutor, have sought asylum since October 2007, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials in El Paso. Immigration law experts have said many of their cases may be hopeless, in large part because fear of crime is generally not grounds for political asylum.
Asylum-seekers have to prove they are being persecuted because or race, religion, political view, nationality or membership in a particular group. They also have to show that the government is either unwilling or unable to protect them.
Spector, who has previously won an asylum case for a Mexican citizen, said he believes Gutierrez has a strong case, given the ongoing drug cartel war more than 1,700 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, in the last 13 months and what he describes as the "massive oppression of reporters in Mexico." Media groups have said Mexico is among the most dangerous places in the world to report.