By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, March 19 (Reuters) – A Colombian reporter working for a Spanish-language news outlet who was arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Nashville in early March was released from custody on Thursday, her legal team said.
ICE arrested Estefany Maria Rodriguez Florez of Nashville Noticias in the Tennessee capital and her detention drew swift condemnation from human rights, immigration advocacy and press freedom groups.
Rodriguez Florez has lived in the U.S. for five years and “frequently reports on stories critical of ICE,” her lawyers say. ICE accused her of violating her visa conditions.
After spending 16 days in ICE detention, the reporter was released on a $10,000 bond, said Mike Holley, a Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition attorney representing the journalist’s habeas case in court.
Holley said in the statement that the reporter’s attorneys were seeking an order barring ICE from “mistreating her in a similar way in the future.”
ICE has been at the heart of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, which rights advocates say violates free speech and due process and has created an unsafe environment. Trump says his policies aim to curb illegal immigration and improve domestic security.
ICE has said Rodriguez Florez will receive due process.
The reporter had a meeting scheduled for mid-March with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, her lawyers said earlier this month when she was detained. ICE previously twice rescheduled a meeting with her, once due to a winter storm and again when an agent could not find her appointment in the system.
Rodriguez Florez arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa, filed for political asylum, later married a U.S. citizen and has a valid work permit, her lawyers say. They add that she and her husband have filed for permission to adjust her status to lawful permanent resident.
Trump’s administration alleges she was not authorized to stay in the U.S. beyond 2021 on her tourist visa. The case against her will continue.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
