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The Nashville journalist who was detained 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 outlet Nashville Noticias, was detained in Nashville on 4 March and spent a week at a county jail in Alabama before being transferred to a detention facility in Louisiana. Her lawyers said Rodríguez was detained without warrant.
The journalist, 35, was born in Colombia and came to the US five years ago with a valid work permit. She had applied for asylum in the US, as she had fled threats related to her work in her home country. She also applied for a green card after her marriage to a US citizen.
The government has denied that she was arrested without a warrant, and DHS officials previously said she was arrested because her tourist visa expired in 2021.
While detained, guards placed her in isolation for five days, believing she had contracted lice. According to court documents, officials made her strip naked and poured a cleaning liquid that Rodríguez believed to be a floor cleaner, over her head, causing burning in her eyes.
She was not allowed to contact her attorneys while detained 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 on her way 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 via a statement.
“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 US.”
Rodríguez was released after a judge granted her a $10,000 bond.
Rodríguez’s detention has raised alarm among press freedom and immigration advocates. In court documents, her lawyers noted she had been covering ICE, including the agency’s workplace raids and mass arrests, and alleged she had been targeted because of her work.
She had reported on immigration arrests at a traffic court a day before she was detained herself, after agents surrounded her car – which was marked with a Nashville Noticias logo.
In January, former CNN anchor Don Lemon and an independent Minnesota journalist, Georgia Fort were arrested by federal agents after they covered an anti-ICE protest at a church in Minnesota.
Various international organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had called for her release.
“We are heartened to see that Estefany Rodríguez was ordered to be released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at her bond hearing but are concerned that her bond is unusually high,” said Katherine Jacobsen, CPJ’s program coordinator for the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, in a statement earlier this week.
