NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A Nashville journalist detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been granted bond, but her imminent release depends on whether ICE attorneys file an appeal before Tuesday evening.
An immigration court set bond at $10,000 for Nashville Noticias reporter Estefany Rodriguez Florez, according to her attorney, Joel Coxander.
ICE attorneys have reserved their right to appeal, and if they do, Rodriguez would remain behind bars pending a full review by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
A show-cause hearing is also scheduled for Tuesday in Nashville's federal courthouse before U.S. Federal Judge Eli Richardson, where attorneys for Rodriguez will argue her constitutional rights were violated during her arrest. Her legal team is seeking her immediate release and asking the court to prevent the government from taking any enforcement action against her — either by retaliating against her past speech or chilling her future speech.
Coxander, along with attorneys with the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said they filed what he described as their strongest argument yet, which includes a claim that the administrative warrant issued by ICE was never shown to Rodriguez.
"The March 2nd warrant that they provided was a picture of a crumpled-up piece of paper that was not executed because it never showed or mentioned that she had received service to it, and the certificate of service is blank, and it was never shown to her or even told to her that it existed," Coxander said.
The Trump Administration later posted an image of a warrant on Twitter in an attempt to dispute those claims, but that version appeared to be typed and included more detail than the one ICE attorneys included as an exhibit in their written response.
Coxander said Saturday was the first time he had spoken to Rodriguez in roughly 10 days since she was detained and transferred to an ICE facility in Alabama. She was later moved to an ICE processing center in Louisiana. He said Rodriguez has been isolated from other detainees and developed lice while detained.
"Estefany's case is important not because it's unique, but because it highlights the cruel and violent crackdown against our neighbors with the current mass deportation agenda that we've been fighting against. These crackdowns have been incredibly hard not only on the targets, our neighbors and community members, but their families and everyone else," Coxander said.
Coxander and Rodriguez's husband, Alejandro Medina III, spoke at a recorded press conference alongside Lisa Sherman Luna, Executive Director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.
"Our families belong together, and this broken immigration system has deeply harmed thousands upon thousands of families across the country, and I hope and I pray our families are back together soon," Medina said.
Medina was present when ICE agents surrounded the Nashville Noticias news vehicle and detained Rodriguez. He said one agent told him he had nothing to worry about because agents knew he was a U.S. citizen, that the couple was married, and that Rodriguez had a pending green card application.
Medina said he told the agent there was also a pending asylum case for his wife, who fled Colombia after multiple death threats over her reporting on political corruption. The ICE agent responded by saying they knew Rodriguez had missed two scheduled meetings. Medina said a massive winter storm shut down practically all of Nashville on the same day as the first scheduled meeting. A second meeting in February was also rescheduled when he said ICE officials could not find anything related to a scheduled meeting in their system.
ICE agents rescheduled that meeting with Rodriguez to mid-March, but detained her days in advance and later claimed they did so because they believed she was a flight risk.
ICE attorneys denied claims that Rodriguez was targeted for her reporting, saying that even though she had a valid work permit and applied for political asylum, she still overstayed her original visa. Coxander has said he and Rodriguez's legal team worry she was retaliated against for her reporting on ICE activity throughout Nashville for the Spanish-language outlet. They noted that ICE had never been in contact with Rodriguez until January — roughly five years after she first entered the country legally on a tourist visa in 2021.
"What we need is for her to be returned, and bond is part of that, but bond is not the end of our work. We continue to press forward in her Habeas case, arguing that her arrest and ongoing detention were outside the law," Coxander said.
Medina said he remained hopeful that Rodriguez's resilience would carry her through what he described as inhumane conditions.
"Estefany is a pillar of strength for all those who surround her, and even though her resilience supersedes in these inhumane conditions, her concern and advocacy for others is unwavering. Even if she is transported across the country and without contact with her attorney for over a week, due to the cruel conditions that exist in ICE detention," Medina said.
"As a heartbroken and worried husband, I'm hoping and praying that Estefany comes home soon and we're able to proceed with an adjustment of status process for her to become a permanent resident and eventually a citizen. As an American citizen, I have that same hope and prayer for everyone across the country who is in a similar situation with a loved one that is unjustly detained or has been deported," Medina said.
I will be in the courtroom on Tuesday with live reports on air and online, with live updates on Twitter @LeviAIsmail.
