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A Nashville reporter who documented ICE activities was arrested and detained by immigration agents on Wednesday.
Estefany RodriguezA Nashville News reporter was detained while driving south of Nashville with her U.S. citizen husband. There was no warrant for her arrest. Rodriguez claims she was given a Notice to Appear (NTA) when she was arrested, not a warrant.
ICE officials told members of Rodriguez’s immigration legal team that she was arrested because she failed to attend two ICE meetings and considered her a flight risk. Her immigration lawyer, Joel Coxand, The claim is that Rodriguez received a G-56 letter in late January asking her to go to an ICE office to “process and supplement information,” which stated that she would be issued an NTA.
“They were invitations,” Coxand said of the letters. “They didn’t say they were required. They said, ‘Come in so we can help make sure you get the best outcome for your case.'” They made no legal claims. “
Rodriguez faced death threats for his work as a journalist, fled his native Colombia, legally entered the United States on a tourist visa in 2021, and later applied for political asylum. She was unable to attend her first meeting with ICE because of an ice storm in the area that forced offices to close.
After receiving another letter in early February with a makeup appointment date, Rodriguez’s husband and a Cox Sound agent went to the ICE office to confirm the details of the meeting. The staff on duty told them that after running her alien registration number, Rodriguez was not in the system and therefore did not need to show up for her February appointment.
Another agent reviewed Rodriguez’s information and provided Rodriguez’s husband with a check-in sheet indicating a future meeting date in March.
“She was told, ‘We’re against you because you didn’t do something we told you you didn’t have to do,'” Coxand said, later adding that Rodriguez was “someone who has always tried to follow the rules.”
Rodriguez has covered several stories about ICE activities for The Nashville Press, which issued a statement Thursday saying it hoped the matter would be resolved quickly so their reporter could “reunite with her young daughter and husband.”
“Nashville News LLC respects U.S. law and hopes our colleagues can successfully resolve this matter so that she can be released as soon as possible as she needs to reunite with her young daughter and husband to continue her legal proceedings within the framework of the law,” the statement read.
“We believe in the justice system of the United States of America,” it concluded.
On Thursday, Rodriguez traveled from Alabama to an ICE processing center in Louisiana.
ICE has not commented on her arrest.
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