ICE Deported Him After His Movie Came Out. Now He's Testing The Limits Of Free Speech

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/23/ [login to see] /ice-deported-him-after-his-movie-came-out-now-hes-testing-the-limits-of-free-spe
Activist Claudio Rojas says he was deported to his homeland Argentina for appearing in a film that criticized U.S. immigration authorities.

Rojas is one of the stars of The Infiltrators. He was invited to introduce the movie at the Miami Film Festival in 2019. Instead, Rojas was detained at a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.

A few weeks later, he was deported.

"They didn't like that the film had come out," Rojas told NPR in Spanish through an interpreter. "If I would have shown up at the Miami Film Festival, I was going to talk a lot. And they wanted to avoid that. So they silenced me."

Immigrant rights advocates have argued for years that ICE is deliberately retaliating against them, despite the agency's denials. Lawyers for Rojas say his case is especially egregious, and raises big questions about immigrants' freedom of speech.

A federal appeals court heard arguments in his case last year, and is now poised to issue a ruling that could have lasting implications.