Legal team for journalist Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto to hold news conference in El Paso, Texas, Monday, Oct. 22

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The legal team for award-winning Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez-Soto will hold a news conference at noon (MT) on Monday, Oct. 22 at the law offices of Eduardo Beckett (1611 Beech St. Suite B, El Paso, TX 79925).

The team will discuss Monday's scheduled hearing with Judge Robert S. Hough in the Executive Office for Immigration Review at the El Paso Immigration Court (700 E. San Antonio, Suite 750, El Paso, TX 79901). The hearing is currently scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. and should conclude by 10:30 a.m. Officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the lead attorney for the Gutiérrezes, Eduardo Beckett, will make presentations to the Judge who will rule on an asylum request for Mr. Gutiérrez-Soto and his son, Oscar. Both Emilio and Oscar will be in the Judge's courtroom for the hearing.

Judge Hough has stated that he will not rule in the courtroom, but will hear both sides and render a written decision at a later date. Should the Judge deny the case and order him removed, Gutiérrez-Soto has a right to appeal that decision.

Judge Hough is the same Judge who denied asylum to Emilio back in July of 2017. Emilio's legal team appealed that decision, but in December of 2017 the Judge issued a deportation ruling against Emilio and Oscar. Attorney Beckett managed to get an emergency stay order from the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) and stop the potentially deadly deportation back to Mexico, however, citing a belief that the pair presented a "flight risk" ICE placed the Gutiérrezes in detention at the El Paso Processing Center. Emilio and Oscar remained in detention for eight months until ICE, under intense pressure from a lengthy legal challenge by U.S. and international press organizations, agreed to release them in July of 2018. Emilio and Oscar are now living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the veteran reporter has been welcomed as a member of this year's class of Knight-Wallace journalism fellows.    

BIA ordered a new asylum hearing and ordered Judge Hough to consider "additional evidence" presented in support of Emilio's case. Attorney Beckett requested a change of venue to Michigan – a request Judge Hough denied. That decision has also been appealed, but because the Judge is running a rapid schedule, BIA has not yet responded to the appeal for change of venue. The hearing will proceed in El Paso on Oct. 22.

Attorney Beckett and Mr. Gutiérrez-Soto will make brief statements at the news conference. Also available for questions and comments will be:

• Lynette Clemetson, Director of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards at University of Michigan. Ms. Clementson administers the Fellowship in which Emilio is currently participating.
• Kathy Kiely, Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism and the Press Freedom Fellow for the National Press Club Journalism Institute.
• William C. McCarren, Executive Director of the National Press Club and member of the Advisory Board of Reporters Without Boarders.

If you wish to attend the news conference or would like to schedule an interview with anyone on the Gutiérrez-Soto legal team, please call Mr. Beckett's law office: (915) 772-4204
As the outcome of the case is still pending, Emilio and Oscar cannot take questions at this time.       

PRESS CONTACTS:
Lindsay Underwood: [email protected], (202) 662-7561
Bill McCarren (on-site in El Paso): [email protected]

SOURCE National Press Club