Journalist Estefany Maria Rodriguez Flores was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Nashville on Wednesday.
Rodriguez Flores, who works for the local news network Nashville Noticias and Univision 42 Nashville, was detained during a traffic stop outside of a gym while with her husband, Nashville Noticias reported in an official statement.
“[Agents] demanded that our colleague be taken into custody for reasons that the legal team will specify at a later date. Estefany Rodriguez was taken to a detention center,” the news organization claimed. “She joined the Nashville Noticias team in 2022, covering social, family, health, police and immigration issues.”
Born in Colombia, Rodriguez Flores came to the U.S. five years ago with a valid work permit and is married to a U.S. citizen, her lawyers claimed in court documents reviewed by The Times.
Her legal team also alleges that there was no arrest warrant for her at the time of her arrest.
Rodriguez Flores has previously applied for legal status and political asylum. She has had two meetings with ICE regarding her legal status rescheduled, her lawyer claimed. One meeting was put off due to a weather event and the other was delayed due to a filing error.
According to court documents, Rodriguez Flores had her meeting with ICE rescheduled for March 17.
The Associated Press reported that lawyers for ICE alleged that agents did file a warrant for Rodriguez Flores’ arrest earlier this week, claiming that her visa had expired.
Rodriguez Flores’ husband, Alejandro Medina III, told journalist Pablo Manríquez that he had initially seen on ICE’s detainee locator site that his wife was being detained in Alabama, but that he now can’t see where she is currently located.
“On March 4, ICE arrested Estefany Rodriguez Florez [sic], an illegal alien from Colombia. She entered the United States on March 10, 2021, on a tourist visa, which required her to leave the U.S. by September 9, 2021,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The Times.
“In violation of our nation’s laws, she never departed. She will receive full due process and remains in ICE custody pending the outcome of her immigration proceedings.”
The Homeland Security spokesperson didn’t not comment on the reporter’s current location.
The National Assn. of Hispanic Journalists condemned the arrest in a statement Friday afternoon.
The organization said it “denounces immigration enforcement that involves detaining journalists” and warned that ICE’s actions set a “dangerous precedent for journalists covering immigration.”
NAHJ reiterated Rodriguez Flores’ immigration status and explained that the journalist left her home country after “receiving death threats following her coverage on crime in the region.”
Rodriguez Flores is at least the third journalist arrested by federal agents this year.
In January, former CNN anchor Don Lemon was arrested in Los Angeles by federal agents on charges that he violated federal law during a protest a week prior to his arrest at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minn.
Minnesota independent journalist Georgia Fort was arrested under the same charges as Lemon.
In a 12-page indictment, federal prosecutors characterized Lemon and Fort as part of the group of protesters, including them as part of the 20 to 40 people who entered the church and “engaged in acts of oppression, intimidation, threats, interference and physical obstruction.”
Last year, a total of 32 journalist were arrested or detained in the U.S., according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Most of the incidents occurred while reporters were covering immigration-related protests.
Notably, Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara was detained by ICE agents as he was reporting on a “No Kings” protest on June 14 in the Atlanta area. The reporter filmed his own arrest because he was livestreaming. Following his arrest, Guevara was deported back to El Salvador.
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