ICE Detains Another Spanish-Language Reporter For Engaging In Journalism

Attorneys for Nashville Noticias reporter Estefany Rodriguez Florez, who was detained by ICE agents, claim that she was targeted for reporting "stories on ICE, including many critical of ICE."

In a habeas petition that asked the United States Court for the Middle District of Tennessee to intervene, Rodriguez’s attorneys continued, “In response, ICE has summarily detained her in a warrantless arrest and has denied her release even though she has done everything possible to comply with immigration law.”

The detention of Rodriguez comes months after a similar case where ICE retaliated against Spanish-language reporter Mario Guevara, who was deported to El Salvador. 

“Rodriguez is a reporter who worked in Colombia before she migrated to the United States, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) recalled. “Rodriguez has said she left her native country after receiving death threats following her coverage on crime in the region.” 

“[ICE] officers arrested her without a warrant on March 4. She was with her husband, Alejandro Medina III, who is a US citizen. The couple was headed to the gym in a marked Nashville Noticias vehicle after dropping their daughter off at the bus stop.” 

“NAHJ denounces immigration tactics that detain journalists and any efforts to interfere with news coverage of immigration enforcement,” the organization declared. 

Rodriguez was transferred to a jail in Etowah, Alabama, where she remains as of March 8. She will likely be moved to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana.

The petition to the court [PDF] contended that “Rodriguez’s arrest and detention violate due process limitations on civil detention because they are designed to punish and silence her speech with which the government disagrees, and to chill others from expressing these viewpoints.” 

For five years, Rodriguez has resided in the U.S. In March 2021, Rodriguez entered the U.S. lawfully with a tourist visa, and in July 2021, she applied for political asylum through an application that was submitted to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). 

Rodriguez’s visa expired in September 2021, leaving her in limbo, but in February 2022, USCIS issued Rodriguez a work permit that allowed her to work for Nashville Noticias and raise her child while USCIS reviewed her application. She maintained “required contact” with USCIS during this time, according to her attorneys.

Since November 2025, Rodriguez worked on stories “critical of ICE’s practices and revealed how they impacted Nashville’s immigrant community.” Therefore, her attorneys insist that the purpose of the government’s action against Rodriguez was to “silence viewpoints with which [President Donald Trump’s] administration disagrees.”

Medina told the New York Times that they married in January and then she applied for a green card through their marriage. That same month ICE asked her come to a local office for “processing and additional information.” Rodriguez tried to comply, but her appointment was moved after a winter storm. 

“She’s a journalist in her blood,” Medina said to the Times. Rodriguez once said “maybe that God’s plan for her ending up in this country was to be able to make an impact on her local community” as a reporter.

Rodriguez’s attorneys further state that ICE agents did not have a warrant or any basis to believe that she posed a flight risk. Yet they detained her, and Rodriguez could see when she was taken into custody that an ICE agent had “a photograph of her Nashville Noticias vehicle” in his cellphone.

In an interview with the Nashville Banner, Rodriguez’s attorney Joel Coxander described how ICE sends letters that just say, “hey, please come by the ICE office.” 

“They’re invitations,” Coxander emphasized. “They don’t say they’re required. They say, ‘Come in so we can help ensure the best outcome for your case.’ They cite no legal requirement to come. And that’s because, for a lot of people, they have no connection to ICE, this isn’t connected with an application with USCIS — or at least it doesn’t say anything like that.”

Rodriguez had a February appointment, however, when Medina and a person working for Coxander went to the ICE office to confirm the appointment, they were informed by a duty officer that Rodriguez was not in the system. So then she was asked to come to the office on March 17.

“Dictatorships snuff out a free press to terrorize independent journalists and decimate the public’s ability to know what’s happening in the world. The Trump administration consistently targets our most vocal and vulnerable voices to do just that," Free Press senior counsel Nora Benavidez asserted.

Benavidez noted that Guevara was deported in 2025 because he filmed a protest.

The Committee to Protect Journalists and the Investigative Reporters and Editors condemned the detention of Rodriguez, and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) put out a message of support, too.

“Estefany is a beloved community member and trusted journalist in the community,” TIRRC stated. “It’s not lost on us that as a reporter Estafany honestly and courageously told real stories about the harms caused by ICE and the people they targeted and detained.”

“This aggressive deployment of immigration agents in our neighborhoods and community has to stop. Tennesseans shouldn’t have to live in fear of our own government coming after us for who we are or how we came to call Tennessee home,” TIRRC concluded. 

A hearing on Rodriguez’s request to the court to intervene is tentatively scheduled for March 21.