by Mikeie Honda Reiland, Eden Turner and Araceli Crescencio, Nashville Banner
March 6, 2026
In a Friday filing, Estefany Rodríguez’s legal team alleged that Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained the Nashville Noticias journalist as retaliation for her critical coverage of ICE.
After Rodríguez was detained early Wednesday morning in the parking lot of Crunch Fitness on Murfreesboro Pike, her lawyers filed an emergency petition for a writ of habeas corpus, seeking an expedited review of whether her detention was lawful. Following preliminary briefings, Judge Eli Richardson found that show cause briefings were necessary ahead of a potential Wednesday hearing.
In their noon filing, ICE’s lawyers disputed Rodríguez’s claim that she was taken into custody without a warrant. To support their claim, attorneys attached what appears to be an iPhone photo of a crumpled-up warrant dated March 2, with no file number and the Certificate of Service section left blank.
Rodríguez’s legal team hit back in its response at 3 p.m. Rodríguez told her immigration attorney, Joel Coxander, that an ICE agent had a photo on his phone of the Honda she and her husband, Alejandro Medina III, were driving, which was wrapped with the Nashville Noticias logo. Based on photos and video of the scene, multiple trucks and SUVs and several officers participated in the detention.
The brief also pointed out that Rodríguez and Coxander had done “everything reasonably possible” to appear at the ICE office for the requested interviews. She was unable to attend once because the office was closed for the ice storm. She only missed her makeup date because ICE duty officers couldn’t find her in the system when her husband and an agent for Coxander visited the office two days before the scheduled appointment and told her to come back later in March.
When Caleb Mundy, a member of Rodríguez’s legal team, arrived at ICE’s office an hour after her arrest, he said the Supervisory Detention and Deportation Officer told him those two missed appointments labeled Rodríguez as a flight risk.
“These facts indicate retaliation against Rodríguez in violation of the First Amendment due to her work as a journalist, including reporting on ICE,” the brief read, before asking the court to add that claim to her petition by close of business Monday.
The brief also pointed out that the service section of the warrant ICE provided in its brief — the part that indicates which officer served the warrant as well as when and where — was blank. Additionally, the brief mentioned that the I-213 form that ICE also attached to its brief did not mention a warrant issued on March 2.
“The Respondents do not even try to justify a warrantless arrest of Rodriguez,” read the brief, before alleging a violation of Rodríguez’s Fourth Amendment rights. “Nonetheless, the Respondents do assert the unserved, unexecuted, and evidently crumpled-into-a-ball warrant makes a difference.”
“The Court has reviewed the parties’ preliminary-response briefing, and finds that show-cause briefing is necessary in this instance,” Richardson wrote in his late Friday order.
Rodríguez is currently detained in the Etowah County Jail in Alabama, and ICE still plans to transport her to Louisiana.
“We’ve continued to share our concerns about the way this activity is happening,” said Mayor Freddie O’Connell at his Friday roundtable. “I think Estefany’s case is yet another example of how this is not about dangerous criminals or even actual legal status, because she has been in a process of asylum review. And so I think that is absolutely highlighting why some of the federal policy approaches are not right for Tennesseeans, and they’re certainly not right for Nashville.”
Friday afternoon, State Representative John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) publicly called for Rodríguez’s release in a press release.
ICE provided the following statement to the Banner:
ICE arrested Estefany Rodriguez-Florez, an illegal alien from Colombia, March 4 during a targeted enforcement operation. Rodriguez-Florez entered the United States with a tourist visa March 10, 2021, which was valid until March 23, 2021. 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.
Claims that ICE did not have a warrant are false. ICE officers had an administrative warrant at the time of the arrest and the officers issuing administrative warrants have found probable cause to issue the warrant. For decades, the Supreme Court and Congress have recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement.
All individuals who violate U.S. immigration law are subject to arrest and detention, regardless of their criminal histories.
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