A reporter in Nashville has been covering ICE arrests in her community. Then she was detained herself

(CNN) — Nashville journalist Estefany Rodriguez frequently reports on Immigration and Customs Enforcement action, becoming familiar with the sudden arrests that have become hallmarks of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

But when trucks surrounded her and her husband’s car Wednesday and agents approached the windows, she was confused, her husband Alejandro Medina said.

Medina realized it was ICE before his wife did, he said. “We really couldn’t understand why we’re being surrounded.”

“We’re definitely shocked,” he told CNN.

Rodriguez, who was born in Colombia, entered the United States legally, one of her lawyers said. She is a journalist for Spanish-language news outlet Nashville Noticias and has reported stories “critical of the practices” by ICE and was covering immigration arrests the day before her detainment Wednesday, a petition filed by her lawyers for her release stated.

It’s the latest instance of journalists being caught up in the Trump administration’s nationwide crackdown on immigration. Mario Guevara, a Salvadoran journalist, was deported in October after being arrested while covering a “No Kings” protest in Atlanta.

The agents swarming the car to detain Rodriguez knew a lot about her and her husband, Medina said. They knew he was born in the US, and they knew they had applied for a green card, he said.

Rodriguez also has a pending political asylum claim and a valid work permit, according to court documents. A spokesperson for ICE told CNN in a statement Rodriguez “currently has no lawful immigration status.”

“A pending green card application and work authorization does NOT give someone legal status to be in our country,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN.

Rodriguez was at a detention center in Alabama as of Friday before she was set to be sent to Louisiana, according to her lawyer, Joel Coxander.

There is still no evidence she has been transferred from the Alabama detention center, Coxander told CNN on Saturday, adding a federal judge in her habeas corpus case has ordered DHS to show cause in response to the petition challenging her detention.

When she worked for a large broadcaster in her home country of Colombia, she reported on government agencies and instances of corruption, her dad Juan Rodriguez and Coxander said.

But then she started receiving threats, Juan Rodriguez said. She reported them to the police and the country’s prosecutor’s office, and a security detail was assigned to her for a while, but that later changed to routine check-ins, her father said.

“There are a lot of problems, including armed groups, guerrillas, corrupt politicians. When you report, you’ll find that some of these people don’t like what you’re reporting on, and they’ll get bothered and think they have to get rid of the reporter because the reporter is making too much noise and informing the public,” Juan Rodriguez said.

When her daughter turned 1, Estefany Rodriguez decided to try to find safety in the US, he said. She came to the United States on a tourist visa in 2021, according to court documents. Before it expired, she applied for political asylum, it said.

However, according to ICE, “she failed to depart the country and is in violation of the conditions of her visa and currently has no lawful immigration status. She will remain in ICE custody pending her immigration proceedings.”

While Coxander said Friday he asked the court to let him amend his initial petition to release Rodriguez to “specifically address that this is a First Amendment violation and retaliation” for her coverage of ICE activities, the agents said they were detaining her because she had failed to show up for two immigration appointments.

Rodriguez received a letter from ICE on January 8 asking her to come to the Nashville field office for “processing and additional information,” according to court documents. She and her lawyer collected paperwork and were ready for the appointment, Coxander said, but the city was shut down by an ice storm and the office closed.

She soon received a second letter, rescheduling the appointment for February 25, Coxander said.

Three days before the rescheduled meeting, Rodriguez’s husband and another attorney visited the ICE office to see if the office could mail the immigration charging documents to Rodriguez’s legal team rather than her appearing in person, the petition said.

The lawyer asked the ICE agent directly if she needed to be there on February 25, and the agent said they couldn’t find Rodriguez in their computer system for appointments “and could find no sign of an appointment for her on February 25,” according to the petition. The agent then said Rodriguez should come on March 17 instead, according to Coxander. The agency gave her another notice that had the March 17 date on it.

Dispute emerges over warrant shared by DHS

DHS posted Saturday on X a photo of what it said was a “warrant for arrest of alien” for Rodriguez, dated March 4, purporting to show an immigration officer determined there was probable cause she was removable from the United States.

However, Rodriguez’s attorney disputed DHS’s version of the document, saying the actual version the department submitted to the court is dated March 2, lacks an Alien Registration Number for Rodriguez, and the section of the warrant where officials are supposed to indicate the warrant was served is blank.

CNN has reviewed the version of the warrant Coxander said was submitted in court filings.

The document DHS posted on X appears to be different from what Coxander says is the actual document and indicates it was issued following a deferred inspection with ICE that occurred that day. Coxander argues the warrant posted on X could not have been the basis for Rodriguez’s initial arrest.

The version of the warrant DHS posted on X appears to cite factors including an alleged “failure to establish admissibility subsequent to deferred inspection” and statements made by Rodriguez to immigration officers as the basis for probable cause she is removable from the United States — boxes that were not checked on the version of the warrant Coxander says was submitted to the court.

CNN has reached out to DHS for comment on the different versions.

In their Friday court filing responding to the government’s preliminary documents, Rodriguez’s legal team notes that, along with the blank certificate of service on the warrant, ICE’s own report of the arrest shows from the moment agents approached Rodriguez in the parking lot until she was taken to the Nashville holding room, she was never presented with a warrant.

This means, the court filing claims, Rodriguez was effectively arrested without a warrant. The documents suggest ICE agents seized her in the parking lot and transported her to the office, bypassing the formal process of serving a warrant.

This distinction is central to her lawyers’ argument.

The X post from DHS appeared to come in response to criticism from Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, who wrote on X Friday that ICE had arrested the journalist “without a warrant” and called her detention part of “the Trump Admin’s machine of cruelty that is attacking the free press and violating our rights.”

“She’s a tough person. Obviously, she’s been through a lot and kept being a journalist despite everything that’s happened, and despite, you know, obviously, the inherent risk of just being near ICE and while she’s covering other arrests,” Coxander said.

Medina said his wife “cares about her community, and she cares about her job, and she’s really good at it,” adding that her work in journalism is only “a piece of her life.”

“She is a mother, she’s a wife, she’s someone that makes her friends feel close,” he said.

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