Nashville journalist arrested by ICE released after 15 days in detention | US immigration
The Nashville journalist who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this month was released from a Louisiana detention center on Thursday after spending 15 days in custody.
Estefany Rodríguez, who covers immigration and other topics for the Nashville Noticias newspaper, was arrested in Nashville on March 4 and spent a week in an Alabama county jail before being transferred to a detention center in Louisiana. His lawyers said Rodríguez was arrested without a warrant.
The journalist, 35, was born in Colombia and arrived in the United States five years ago with a valid work permit. She had sought asylum in the United States after fleeing threats related to her work in her home country. She also applied for a green card after marrying a US citizen.
The government has denied she was arrested without a warrant, and DHS officials previously said she was arrested because her tourist visa expired in 2021.
While in detention, guards placed her in solitary confinement for five days, believing she had contracted lice. According to court documents, the officials forced her to undress and poured cleaning fluid over her head that Rodríguez thought was floor cleaner, causing her eyes to burn.
She was not allowed to contact her attorneys while in detention in Alabama, her attorneys said, and was only able to contact her legal team after 10 days in detention.
“Today we celebrate that Estefany has been released from the ICE detention center in Louisiana and is returning home to be with her family,” Mike Holley, an attorney with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition representing Rodríguez’s habeas case in federal court, said in a statement.
“We are grateful that Estefany will be able to walk away with her freedom to be with her family as she continues to fight for her right to remain in her community and in the United States.”
Rodríguez was released after a judge granted her $10,000 bail.
Rodríguez’s detention alarmed press freedom and immigration advocates. In court papers, her lawyers said she covered up for ICE, including the agency’s workplace raids and mass arrests, and claimed she was targeted because of her work.
She had reported immigration-related arrests in traffic court a day before she was arrested herself, after officers surrounded her car — which bore the Nashville Noticias logo.
In January, Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, and Georgia Fort, a freelance journalist from Minnesota, were arrested by federal agents after covering an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church.
Various international organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), had called for his release.
“We are heartened to see that Estefany Rodríguez was ordered released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at her bail hearing, but we are concerned that her bail is unusually high,” Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ’s program coordinator for the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, said in a statement earlier this week.
