Nashville Noticias reporter Estefany Rodríguez Flórez was released on $10,000 bond from ICE custody on Thursday, more than two weeks after she was arrested for allegedly overstaying a tourist visa. Her lawyers have argued that her arrest and detention are government retaliation for her ongoing coverage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Nashville Noticias staffer Estefany Rodríguez faced death threats in Colombia, came to the U.S. legally and has applied for asylum
“Today we celebrate that Estefany has been released from the ICE detention center in Louisiana and is on her way home to be with her family,” Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition attorney Mike Holley says in a release. “We are grateful that Estefany is 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 U.S.”
As previously reported, Rodríguez was stopped by ICE in South Nashville on March 4, and was transferred to an Alabama jail before being moved to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana. Her arrest has sparked statements and concern from immigrants’ rights groups and professional journalism organizations, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
According to legal filings, Rodríguez has “suffered both physically and emotionally” in ICE custody, with one incident that took place in Alabama’s Etowah County Jail described in detail.
“After a day in the Etowah jail, Rodríguez was taken to an airplane for transport to Louisiana,” the court document reads. “An officer was looking at detainees’ scalps, and Rodríguez felt her head was a little itchy. An officer asked her if she had lice, and she said no but that she had a young daughter in school. An officer made her go back to the jail, where they gave her shampoo and a comb. The woman who helped her comb out her hair indicated she saw no lice in her scalp. Yet Rodríguez was held in isolation for about five days. After those days in isolation, she was forced to go to a shower room and to strip naked, and then the officer poured some kind of chemical liquid on her head, which seemed to be something used to clean floors and which burned her eyes. The woman assisting cried to see the abuse.”
Estefany Rodríguez fights deportation proceedings and sues Trump administration while in federal custody in Louisiana
Rodríguez’s attorneys also allege that her communication with both her legal counsel and her husband were restricted by jail staff. Her lawyers have filed a habeas case that alleges that she was arrested without a warrant, and targeted over her First Amendment-protected activities as a journalist.
The government disputed the claim that it was a warrantless arrest and argued in court filings that First Amendment rights “may not even be applicable to an illegal alien,” adding: “Hostility directed at her as a journalist is nothing more than a challenge to a discretionary decision to commence removal proceedings.”
“Through that [habeas] petition, we are seeking not only her complete release, but an order prohibiting ICE from mistreating her in a similar way in the future,” says TIRRC attorney Holley.
