Press briefing on award-winning journalist's asylum hearing POSTPONED while court seeks lost records unreviewed by presiding judge

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Oct 22, 2018, 13:53 ET

EL PASO, Texas, Oct. 22, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A briefing on journalist Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto's asylum hearing has been postponed while advocates for the award-winning Mexican reporter wait for an immigration court to find lost records.

Advocates for Gutiérrez are available by phone as they await court action.

Gutiérrez and his advocates — including representatives of the National Press Club, the University of Michigan's Knight Wallace Journalism Fellowships and the Missouri School of Journalism — waited in an immigration court for more than two hours before learning that the presiding judge in the case, Robert Hough, could not find key records from the Board of Immigration Appeals. The judge said he has not read the records, which the BIA transmitted to him in May. The records are critical to the case because they include a 500+ page amicus brief signed by numerous journalism and free press organizations. They are the basis for the BIA's decision to order a new asylum hearing.

The winner of the National Press Club's 2017 Press Freedom Award, Gutiérrez fled to the United States after his reporting on military corruption in Mexico made him the target of death threats. Although he entered the country legally and has abided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he was detained for eight months earlier this year, winning release only after journalism organizations filed a habeas corpus case against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service.

"We are flabbergasted that federal records have gone missing in this case and that it is delaying justice once again," said William McCarren, executive director of the National Press Club.

Gutiérrez and his son, Oscar, flew to El Paso for the hearing from Michigan, where Emilio Gutierrez is spending the year at the prestigious Knight-Wallace Journalism fellowships at the University of Michigan.

"These documents are absolutely central to Emilio's case. It is astonishing to find out that the judge has not read and fairly considered evidence that so many journalists involved in Emilio's case have taken the time read carefully over the past several months," said Lynette Clemetson, director of the Knight-Wallace Fellowship. "At its heart, this case is about the freedom and safety of journalists. Our hope now is that journalists covering this case will scrutinize the court's ability to give Emilio a fair hearing."

Gutiérrez asked the court to switch the case to an immigration judge in Michigan, closer to where the two men now live, but Hough has refused. He denied the Gutiérrezes' asylum claim in July, 2017 but the Board of Immigration Appeals has ordered a new hearing based on evidence of Gutiérrez's long career as a reporter and the growing danger to journalists in Mexico, now the most dangerous place in the Western hemisphere for reporters.

"This is the latest strange twist in a case that's so strangely unfair it's hard not to conclude that Emilio is the victim of prejudice — against Mexicans and against journalists," said Kathy Kiely, Lee Hills Chair in Free Press Studies at the Missouri Journalism School

Contact: Kathy Kiely, 202-256-4748, National Press Club Press Freedom Fellow and Lee Hills Fellow in Free Press Studies, Missouri School of Journalism

Bill McCarren, 202-727-7787, National Press Club executive director

Lynette Clemetson, 202-255-7585, director Knight-Wallace Fellowships, University of Michigan

SOURCE National Press Club