A journalist arrested during a protest in June in metro Atlanta could be deported in the near future after a federal judge ordered him to return to El Salvador, lawyers for the ACLU say.

Mario Guevara has been in ICE custody for months following his arrest despite an immigration judge's previous order granting him a bond.

On Friday, the Board of Immigration Appeals declined to release Guevara on bond. Instead, it granted the government's request to open the journalist's 2012 immigration case, ordering him to leave the country. The board also denied a motion to return the removal proceeds to the previous judge so that Guevara could seek a green card.

"Mr. Guevara should not even be in immigration detention, but the government has kept him there for months because of his crucial reporting on law enforcement activity, said Scarlet Kim, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, & Technology Project. "The fact that he may now be put on a plane to El Salvador, a country he fled out of fear, at any moment, despite a clear path to becoming a permanent resident is despicable. The court must ensure he is not deported and should order his release from detention immediately."

An emergency hearing is underway in federal court to see if the deportation order can be stopped by an emergency restraining order.

Mario Guevara's arrest in Georgia

Police in DeKalb County arrested Guevara while he was livestreaming a rally protesting President Trump's administration on Jun 14, charging with him obstructing police, unlawful assembly, and improperly entering a roadway.

"I'm a member of the media, officer," Guevara is heard telling a police officer in a video of his arrest. The recording shows Guevara wearing a bright red shirt under a protective vest with "PRESS" printed across his chest.

Within days, DeKalb County prosecutors dismissed the charges connected with the protest. The Gwinnett County Sheriff's Office then took out warrants charging Guevara with reckless driving and other counts, but the county's solicitor's office declined to prosecute the case.

ICE took custody of Guevara a few days after his arrest and refused to release him.

"He got hit with the ICE hold, and it's been a whirlwind ever since then," attorney Giovanni Diaz told CBS News Atlanta. "Up until that point, we were fairly confident based on what we knew about Mario's immigration history, lack of any criminal history whatsoever in 20 years of being in the United States, his reputation with law enforcement agencies, his reputation with the media ... we were confident that we were getting him a bond."

An immigration judge did grant Guevara a $7,500 bond, but Diaz said that the government filed a stay.

"Those discretionary stays are very rare in this context. I've seen a discretionary stay maybe twice in 13 years," he said.

Guevara fled El Salvador with his family in 2004, saying he was beaten and repeatedly harassed because of his work as a political reporter for the newspaper La Prensa Grafica. They immigrated to Georgia, where Guevara worked as a reporter for Georgia's largest Spanish-language newspaper, Mundo Hispanico, before launching his own online news site, MGNews.

Homeland Security officials have said Guevara was placed in deportation proceedings because he is in the U.S. illegally, arguing that an immigration judge denied Guevara's application for asylum and ordered him and his family to leave the country in 2012. 

Diaz said that Guevara is authorized to work and remain in the U.S. and that the previous immigration case against him was administratively closed more than a decade ago. He has a pending visa petition and is eligible for a green card, Diaz said.

Last month, Guevara's lawyers filed a petition in federal court that claimed the government is violating Guevara's constitutional rights to free speech and due process, arguing he is being punished for filming the police.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.