We Bring Fear…

I wrote this  in 2017…

“In 2009 the late, great, Charles Bowden wrote his classic article, “We Bring Fear” about a Mexican reporter fleeing for his life from the Mexican army and seeking asylum in the U.S.

The reporter, Emilio Gutierrez, finally had his case heard this month…and his application was denied.

Gutierrez came here the right and lawful way… and still was denied asylum.

My hope is that you read Bowden’s piece and ask why this is so.

For me, this is an immoral and unrighteous act…and one that as a Christian I must protest.”

Today, almost 15 years after Bowdens article and Gutierrez’s application…he and his son have been granted asylum.

Without Chuck’s writing this wouldn’t have happened… he didn’t live to see it,but wherever he is now, he knows for sure that he made a difference.

“A federal immigration judge granted asylum today to a Mexican journalist who fled his country more than 15 years ago due to death threats, and who had been denied asylum twice.

Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, 60, was all smiles after U.S. Immigration Judge Nathan L. Hubert announced his decision Monday morning in his courtroom on the seventh floor of the Richard C. White Federal Building in Downtown El Paso. Hubert also granted asylum to the journalist’s son, Oscar Gutierrez Soto, 30.

The elder Gutiérrez Soto turned to the gallery and raised his arms in a victory clasp. The 10 people in the audience including family and friends from Missouri, Michigan, New Mexico and Washington, D.C., cheered the ruling. Many of them had helped the father and son through their asylum denials and delays.

When allowed, the journalist approached the bench to shake hands with the judge and thank him for his ruling.

“I appreciate it,” he said to Hubert, a former resident of Michigan. After the proceedings, the group shared hugs, tears and kisses.

As a result of today’s ruling, Gutiérrez Soto has the status of asylee, which means he can apply for legal permanent residency, which he could get in about a year. That would allow him to live and work in the U.S. Then he could apply for citizenship in four years.

Outside the courtroom, he said he might resume his journalism career, but he wants to take some time to reflect on what should come next. These days he works at Base Lake Farm in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“It was my therapy,” Gutiérrez Soto said in Spanish. “For years I needed to be quiet.”

The Mexican journalist left Chihuahua in 2008 after he received death threats from the Mexican military due to stories he wrote about their corruption. He came to the U.S. with his son through a border crossing in Antelope Wells, N.M., and applied for political asylum.

U.S. immigration judge Robert Hough ruled against him twice, once in July 2017 and once in February 2019. Representatives of Gutiérrez Soto appealed both decisions, and both times the Board of Immigration Appeals asked the court to reconsider. A three-judge BIA panel ruled in September 2023 that the journalist was eligible for asylum. The BIA is the highest administrative body in the U.S. responsible for the interpretation and application of immigration laws.

Gutiérrez Soto is a native of Ascensión, a small town about 90-minutes from the U.S. border. He worked as a correspondent, radio reporter and editor in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, for most of the 1990s.”