A Nashville-based Colombian reporter was released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on bond Thursday after her arrest earlier this month.
Estefany Rodríguez, a Spanish-language reporter for Nashville Noticias who typically covers immigration, was released from a Louisiana detention facility after posting a $10,000 bond. Her launch comes simply over two weeks after she was detained by ICE brokers in Nashville.
“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, a Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights legal professional representing Estefany, mentioned in a statement.
Rodríguez’s attorneys are looking for an order barring ICE from “mistreating her in a similar way in the future,” Holley mentioned. (Rodríguez has two instances, one over her detention and one over her immigration standing.)
A petition filed by her legal professionals mentioned Rodríguez has reported tales which might be typically “critical of the practices” by ICE and was reporting on immigration arrests the day previous to her detention.
Rodríguez fled Colombia in 2021 after receiving demise threats associated to her work as a journalist. She entered the United States legally on a vacationer visa and utilized for political asylum earlier than the visa expired.
At the time of her detention, Rodríguez had a pending inexperienced card software and a piece allow issued by US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Following her detention, ICE claimed Rodríguez “currently has no lawful immigration status.” The federal company additionally alleged that she “failed to depart the country and is in violation of the conditions of her visa.” ICE brokers claimed Rodríguez was detained as a result of she failed to seem at two immigration appointments.
Rodríguez’s immigration lawyer pushed back on these allegations, pointing to a winter storm in Nashville that made journey hazardous and closed the ICE workplace. On the day of her second appointment, officers have been unable to find the appointment within the system, based on her authorized petition. Rodríguez was slated for a check-in on the ICE workplace on March 17 however was in custody by that date.
For nearly every week and a half, Rodríguez was held in Alabama’s Etowah County Jail, the place “jailers refused to set up an attorney-client call,” a court docket submitting alleges. Rodríguez was stored in isolation for 5 days, the submitting states.
Rodríguez’s $10,000 bond is “unusually high,” based on the Committee to Protect Journalists, particularly contemplating her husband and 7-year-old daughter dwell within the United States and she or he will not be thought-about a flight danger.
The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomed Rodríguez’s launch however warned of the hazard posed to journalists throughout the nation.
“Her detention has had a chilling effect, undermining journalists’ ability, especially local reporters, to cover their communities without fear of retaliation,” José Zamora, CPJ’s regional director for the Americas, mentioned in a press release. “The government must uphold press freedom and ensure all journalists can work safely and without reprisal.”
NCS has reached out to ICE for remark.
The administration has detained different journalists throughout a nationwide immigration crackdown as nicely. In October, impartial journalist Mario Guevara was deported to his native El Salvador after months in federal custody.
Like Rodríguez, Guevara had fled his dwelling nation after receiving death threats over his reporting there and, like Rodríguez, had reported on US immigration previous to his arrest.