On Monday afternoon, volunteers gathered at North Nashville taco spot Tío Fun to spend hours calling up local and state representatives and voice support for a journalist taken by ICE.
Nashville Noticias staffer Estefany Rodríguez faced death threats in Colombia, came to the U.S. legally and has applied for asylum
Nashville Noticias reporter Estefany Rodriguez was pulled over and detained by immigration enforcement on March 4. Her arrest has earned national coverage, and professional organizations like the Committee to Protect Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors have called for her release. Amnesty International USA echoed the demand in a Monday morning statement.
“Obviously, I think there's special attention on this [case] because she's a journalist, and she was covering ICE activity, and it's hard not to think that that wasn't related,” says local singer-songwriter Karina Daza, who spearheaded the event with support from grassroots advocacy group The ReMix Way.
Daza, who also founded Latin American musician collective Musicana, says the goal of the event was to provide simple, short scripts and a list of numbers. Most of the numbers are of Nashville and Tennessee elected officials, although numbers for progressive politicians like U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro of Texas and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York were included. The materials were placed at each table inside the restaurant, and the call party also provided food and art activities. About a dozen people were at the restaurant making calls when the Scene arrived, as well as several journalists.
Daza met Rodriguez personally when the reporter covered Musicana events. She also knows Rodriguez’s husband Alejandro Medina III, a fellow musician.
“They've always been so kind and supportive of the Latino community, it's impossible not to have run into them,” says Daza.
Tennessee State University professor Lauren Rocha doesn’t know Rodriguez personally, but wanted to show support for someone from the Latino community she values.
“She's a member of the community, and you have to put in what you take in a community too,” she says.
Vanessa Delgado, a board member of The ReMix Way, has been interviewed by Rodriguez but points to the people showing up to help out who had never met the journalist.
Attorneys say once-routine immigration cases are now ending in detention
Delgado says some people may think being as visible as Rodriguez could offer a level of protection, but “we’re in a different era where that’s not true” — alluding to other incidents where journalists had been targeted by federal law enforcement.
“I think seeing Estefany and what's happening to her and her family really reminds us … who came out today that it really can be anyone,” says Delgado. “It doesn't matter how recognizable you are, folks can do the right thing and do it the 'right way,' and they still are being disappeared."
According to the Tennessee Lookout, a federal judge set a deadline of midnight Monday for ICE to file a justification for Rodriguez’s arrest.
Daza says keeping up with immigration rights is exhausting work in Trump’s second term, and that the flood of chaos is by design.
“It's OK to rest right, take a beat, take a day off, but you have to get back on the horse,” she says. “And that's what this is. It's like, we're not giving up. Yes, the [ICE] activity has increased, but that just means our solidarity is going to increase too.”
