The prominent Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez Soto’s 15-year nightmare is all but over.

Gutiérrez Soto, who survived death threats for exposing military corruption in his home country and prolonged detention in the U.S. while seeking a grant of asylum, is set to formally receive the long-sought legal relief March 18.

He offered an emotional expression of appreciation Wednesday at the National Press Club, which helped spearhead an often frustrating, yet formidable, campaign to win the journalist legal status in the U.S.

The National Press Foundation was among more than a dozen press freedom organizations supporting Gutiérrez Soto, joining a “friend of the court” amicus brief.

A three-judge panel of federal immigration appellate judges issued its asylum grant in September, concluding that Gutiérrez Soto had proved a “well-founded fear of persecution in Mexico on account of his political opinion and particular social group membership and that his fear is subjectively genuine and is shown to be objectively reasonable.”

In its decision, the judges reversed earlier denials as “clearly erroneous,” citing the threats Gutierrez-Soto “received at the hands of the military in Mexico.”

The case prompted outrage in 2017 when U.S. immigration authorities moved to detain the journalist two months after making remarks about America’s broken immigration system at a National Press Club event where he was feted for his work in Mexico.

While press freedom advocates and immigration attorneys have described the asylum grant as a hard-fought victory, Lynette Clemetson, director of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists at the University of Michigan and a key supporter of Gutiérrez Soto’s cause, sounded a note of caution.

Despite the ruling, Clemetson said the nation’s deeply flawed immigration system remains unchanged and puts other international journalists seeking asylum at similar risk.

“We’re at a conclusion, but we’re not at a point of celebration, because all of the systems that made this possible to happen to Emilio are still in place,” Clemetson said.

Kathy Kiely, a University of Missouri journalism professor and longtime journalist who helped gather key evidence to support Gutiérrez Soto’s case, called on U.S. policymakers to re-focus their immigration enforcement efforts away from costly attempts targeting reporters.

“If you want secure borders, help people stay in their own countries,” Kiely said. “If you want to help people stay in their own countries, help stamp out the corruption that is sending them here. If you want to stamp out corruption, help journalists because journalists are the check on corruption.”

The briefing also recognized the efforts of Gutiérrez Soto’s attorneys Eduardo Beckett and Penny Venetis, along with Michele Salcedo, a former president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and advocate for the reporter’s asylum campaign.